In one of the world’s most densely populated cities, abandoned villages have been reclaimed by nature
Thick roots tumble across a dilapidated house, the snake-like trunks of a banyan tree framing where the front door once stood. Its walls have been hollowed by decades of typhoons, monsoons and summer humidity, now little more than loose, moss-covered stones and mortar dust. Vines tease through cracks in the foundations and fallen leaves litter the rotten floorboards.
This scene wouldn’t look out of place deep in the Malaysian rainforest or the verdant foothills of India. But photographer Stefan Irvine snapped these pictures just a stone’s throw from one of the most densely populated cities in the world, a global metropolis of steely skyscrapers and gridlocked traffic.
Irvine, who has lived in Hong Kong since 2002, first stumbled across the city’s abandoned villages in 2012 while visiting a friend in the New Territories, a vast area to the city’s north. Accounting for over 85% of Hong Kong’s territory, the district is characterized by steep mountains, long stretches of rugged coastline and tree-covered country parks.
“It made me question, ‘Why (were) so many of these places vacant in a place like Hong Kong, where the property prices are the highest in the world?’” Irvine recalled. Over the next 12 years, the London-born photographer explored more of these abandoned villages, documenting what would become the subject of his new book, “Abandoned Villages of Hong Kong.”
