Greg Girard | Polygon Galley

Acclaimed Canadian photographer Greg Girard receives his first-ever career survey this summer. Girard gained recognition working for media outlets while also developing independent projects focused on the social and physical transformations of urban centres, especially in Asia. Travelling extensively, he spent considerable time in Hong Kong from 1982 through 1998, where he photographed the Kowloon Walled City for what became the influential publication City of Darkness: Life in Kowloon Walled City (1993), later reissued as City of Darkness Revisited (2014). Girard was based in Shanghai between 1998 and 2011, and is renowned for his images of that city’s rapid, and at times violent, metamorphosis through the beginning of the 21st century. Girard has also produced a number of photobooks, including Phantom Shanghai (2007), which The Independent newspaper cited as one the top 10 photographic books ever produced, as well as Under Vancouver, 1972 – 1982 (2017), which is now in its fourth printing. His photographs have appeared in a wide range of internationally circulating publications, such as National Geographic, the New York Times Magazine, Time, Fortune, and the Sunday Times Magazine (UK).