Film Director and Artist. Zhou Chengzhou is the Edge of Humanity Magazine contributor of this photo essay. From the project ‘Times Paradise’. To see Zhou ’s body of work, click on any image.

I have been working on this project since 2018. While taking a lot of photos, I also made a documentary. Both shuttle between reality and the surreal. During the course of the project, I discovered that most of the abandoned amusement parks in China came into existence due to a strange development.

After the housing reform in 1998, many real estate developers used the construction of large amusement parks as an excuse to sell houses in order to obtain real estate benefits. Without long-term planning, the amusement parks were abandoned after real estate developers had reached their initial goal. In addition to this, due to plagiarism and imitation, the model of the amusement park is singular, repetitive and homogenous. There are a large number of amusement facilities and installations that are not aesthetically pleasing.

I found these parks through Chinese platforms such as Xiaohongshu and also through maps. I went to about 20 large and small cities in China to shoot. I also met some people who had gone to the parks to look for their childhood, who then became part of my works. Most of the amusement parks I shot have now completely disappeared. In our era of multiple entertainment and cultural shock, I hope that these parks will be valued and respected again.