“Concrete Euphoria” is a photo-series that explores of the ever-changing mega cities of Asia. Created entirely within the camera, the photographer works with exposure of 4 and 8 within a single frame, varying from intervals between seconds to several months for each exposure.

In the creation of contemporary landscape images, the photographer see the camera as a tool to translate the experience of being in a physical space into a two-dimensional map. The prints, being final outcome of this work, function as a map that plots out the interlocking systems of the city. It becomes a point whereby the city exists both as a foreign and familiar terrain, an amalgam of geographic and personal maps in which we engage in and trace with our senses.

In creating kaleidoscope-like multiple exposures, the camera takes a step to render familiar places as fantastical and sublime, so that the city may be seen with new eyes. Elements within the cityscape such a streetlights, road signs, buildings intersect to create stark symbols amidst the confusion. In some images, almost innocently, religious and political symbols emerge: we can see crosses, swastikas and grids. By deliberately including within my composition, contrasting elements such as concrete and nature, old and new, textures collide and blend within the drama of juxtaposition. Wonder is created in the way the fragmented details rework and reassemble themselves into something new. At the same time, a sense of mounting anxiety and powerlessness is created in the face of overburdened archives crammed within this seemingly endless repetition.

This series was shot with a large format camera, on 4x5 film transparencies. The scale of the images and its resolution allows the viewers to appreciate the pattern-like quality of the image at a distance and engage with the minute and intricate details up close. Occasionally, with the capacity of the medium, subtle differences in between the 4 exposures are revealed – for example amidst the towering buildings viewers can spot a passing airplane in the sky or a worker in a construction site. Working with long exposures at varied timings also allows me to create variations and changes within the seemingly repetitive pattern. Just as in the images, urban living in can be a routinely mundane process. It is only when we stop to take a look at our surroundings do we chance upon little jewels in Asia’s ever-growing concrete maze.