Longing for Paradise is an allusion to Caspar David Friedrich's iconic work Der Watzmann. In Friedrich's painting, the unreachable mountain, radiant in white light, stands as a symbol of divine power. Like the Romantic painter, Scholz is not concerned with documenting reality, but with rendering intuitions and longings. The outer landscape thus becomes a means of expressing inner states.

At the same time, Scholz deliberately introduces moments of irritation that lead viewers to question the truthfulness of the photographs as well as their own position in the world. It is part of the exhibition's concept that not only do seemingly opposing elements stand in harmony with one another, but that different societal visions of an ideal or desired state are concealed, like metaphors, behind the pictorial motifs.

In the images of Lost Paradise, the Rückenfigur — the figure seen from behind — gazes upon cities and landscapes destroyed by war and environmental catastrophe.