Canadian born Greg Girard has been living in China
since 1998. Using Shanghai as his base, he
documents the social and cultural transformations
taking place across China and throughout Asia. His
first Canadian exhibition will feature works from
two series, Shanghai Falling and Factory World,
which document the buildings, shops, homes and
neighbourhoods that are unlikely to survive
Shanghai’s vision of its own future. Distracted by
the pace and scale of Shanghai’s well-documented
recent developments, it’s easy to overlook the
reason that so much of the city’s period
architecture has survived for so long: urban
development for profit was suspended for nearly a
half century. Girard’s photographs document this
unique period that is rapidly coming to an end. They
have appeared in publications such as Time,
Newsweek, Fortune, The New York Times
Magazine and other international titles.
Photographs documenting the Kowloon Walled City
in Hong Kong were first published in the 1993
book, City of Darkness.