- Magenta Foundation / Polygon Gallery 2026
- Hardback, 1st edition, 356p
- New
This new book marks the first ever career retrospective of Greg Girard's work: 356 pages, 200 photographs, many never published before. Tracing Girard's deep engagement with the urban landscape and its inhabitants, beginning with early work in Vancouver and continuing through decades living and working in Asia. Cities such as Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai where he lived and visited through the 70s, 80s, 90s and 2000s.
An early interest in Asia resulted in his living for decades in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Shanghai where he captured these cities extraordinary and often tumultuous transformations at the end of the 20th century and into the 21st. His record of life in Hong Kong’s Kowloon Walled City in City of Darkness (1993, first edition; 1999, reprint) and in City of Darkness Revisited (2014, first edition; 2021, reprint) co-authored with Ian Lambot, have formed the basis for countless reimaginings of a dystopian/romantic, Asia-influenced, urbanized near future in film and video games. These images, along with the work in Phantom Shanghai (2007), illustrate the tension between memory and progress, the built environment and human experience, and have earned international acclaim.
The book accompanies the museum retrospective exhibition of the same title at The Polygon (North Vancouver, BC), opening July 9 through Oct 25, 2026.
