About The Book

A visual journey through horror and joy, Inferno & Paradiso confronts the moral tension between witnessing suffering and nurturing hope in a broken world.

Inferno & Paradiso is a powerful photographic and editorial project that confronts the fragile tension between horror and joy, pain and hope. Conceived by artist Alfredo Jaar and featuring works by 20 leading photojournalists, each contributor presents two images: one depicting the darkest aspects of human suffering, the other capturing a moment of pure, often unexpected joy. Originally created in response to Jaar’s experience of the Rwandan genocide, the project resists apathy and indifference, challenging the spectator to engage with the complex emotional spectrum of our contemporary condition. With an immersive slide installation and a richly layered book, the work explores how images bear witness to reality while also asking fundamental questions about the possibility of happiness in a fractured world. Drawing inspiration from Dante and humanist theology, Inferno & Paradiso becomes a secular pilgrimage through human experience, paying homage to the moral courage of those who testify through images.

About The Author

Product Details

  • Publisher: L'Artiere (January 27, 2026)
  • Length: 100 pages
  • ISBN13: 9791280978233

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Raves and Reviews

"Born out of Jaar's own experience of the atrocities of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in which he had entered churches full of bodies and silence so thick it was almost touchable, the work is fueled by an experience that had led him to believe that art itself could never be enough but that not looking was much worse. In response to this failure of vision, Jaar created a place where images aren't consumed but occupied, where order and time force a viewer to remain with what they might otherwise shy away from."

– Çisemnaz Çil, Musée Magazine

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