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PUBLISHER
Steidl

BOOK FORMAT
Clth, 12.5 x 11 in. / 256 pgs / 200 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 4/23/2019
Out of print

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: SPRING 2018 p. 134

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783958293977 TRADE
List Price: $75.00 CAD $105.00

AVAILABILITY
Not available

TERRITORY
NA ONLY

THE SPRING 2026 ARTBOOK | D.A.P. CATALOG

Preview our SPRING 2026 catalog, featuring more than 500 new books on art, photography, design, architecture, film, music and visual culture.

David McMillan: Growth and Decay

Pripyat and the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone

Text by Claude Baillargeon.

Since 1994 Scottish-born Canadian photographer David McMillan (born 1945) has journeyed 21 times to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Inspired by his teenage memories of Nevil Shute’s On the Beach (1957), a disturbing vision of the world following nuclear war, McMillan found in Pripyat the embodiment of an irradiated city still standing but void of human life. As one of the first artists to gain access to “The Zone,” McMillan initially explored the evacuated areas with few constraints and in solitude, save for an occasional scientist monitoring the effects of radioactivity. Returning year after year enabled him to revisit the sites of earlier photographs—sometimes fortuitously, sometimes by design—bearing witness to the forces of nature as they reclaimed the abandoned communities. Above all, his commitment has been to probe the relentless dichotomy between growth and decay in The Zone.

Featured image is reproduced from 'David McMillan: Growth and Decay.'

PRAISE AND REVIEWS

CNN

Oscar Holland

As his book's title, "Growth and Decay," suggests, McMillan is concerned with both the retreat of humankind and the reappearance of nature. Landscapes in his photos, while bleak, feature blossoming plants and trees bursting through manmade structures.

Photo News Daily

[David McMillan's] unhurried approach to documenting The Zone allowed time to find both unassuming and sensational scenes, giving rise to work that probes the relentless dichotomy between growth and decay in The Zone.

Daily Beast

The photographs are stunning reminders of so many things from the failures of the 20th century to our morbid fascination with decay. All of which make this book a worthy addition to any coffee table collection.