Photographer Alessandro Sarno’s latest book, Miami: Contemporary Visions from a Tropical Jungleland, features a collection of tropical visions, poetry and QR-accessible audio recordings from HistoryMiami Museum’s oral history project. The full-spectrum experience of first-person narratives details Miami’s past, present and future. The book began as a collection of photographs taken over 15 years from the Italian-born artist and morphed into a deep dive into the city’s unassuming corners that explore Sarno’s personal relationship with the city. Sarno made a name for himself with his previous five books on the Bahamas and now his latest is a love letter to Miami.
“I have loved Miami way before I stepped on its soil for the first time in 1993,” Sarno says. “I fell in love watching Miami Vice city’s water, the bridges, the causeways, the Ferraris, the architecture, the neon lights, the bodegas, the Sarno’s—I loved everything. To me, it was an “exotic tropical jungle land. Today I feel exactly the same way.”
Jungleland also features stories and commentary from notable Miami residents, including fashion icon Bárbara Hulanicki and celebrity restaurateur Michelle Bernstein who says, “his images flood my senses with memories and every decade of my life here in South Florida.”
