Paradise Now

Peter Bialobrzeski
Paradise Now

Paradise Now presents fragments of nature—some of them mise en scène, others untouched by urban growth—on the periphery of the artificially illuminated infrastructure of large Asian cities. Unlike natural light, the lights of the big city do not follow any direction: the artificial suns comprised of sodium lamps, automobile headlights, and illuminated skyscrapers form a kind of “vernacular light” that makes the urban super-green alternate between the hyper-real and the surreal. The images in this publication celebrate this lush green as a sign of hope, but also pose the question of whether we can continue to take responsibility for this incandescence, considering the predicted climatic catastrophe. Never before have our cities been so bright—they will not be able to glow like this in the future. Taken between October 2007 and March 2008 in Hanoi, Jakarta, Singapore, Bangkok, and Kuala Lumpur, these photos remind us of the attraction of decandence and senselessness.