Paradise Found

Paradise Found is a new book by artist Devin Troy Strother and designer Yuri Ogita that explores and examines the notion of authorship. It is a response to the book Lost Paradise, by artist Žiga Kariž and designer Vasja Cencic, which compiled preexisting images without text or context.

In Paradise Found, Strother and Ogita abstract these images to create new ones. Images without people were digitally filtered and painted over; some saw the addition of text that reflects Strother’s sense of humor. Images with white people saw the hands and arms painted over with black; their faces superimposed with scans of hand-painted stickers from Strother’s practice.

This faux diversification via Strother’s usage of assigned signage for black people was an attempt by the artist, a black man, to regain a sense of ownership during his time living as a minority in Germany amongst a majority white population, and to alter a nameless book into something significant.