ATM Gallery is pleased to announce Building Beijing 2008, an exhibition of color photographs by Benjamin Collier. The exhibition will be open by appointment from August 7 – 30, 2008, with an opening ceremony on Thursday, August 7, from 6:00 to 9:00 pm.
Timed to coincide with the 2008 summer Olympics, Building Beijing 2008 documents the construction of the Olympic Village and surrounding sites through the eyes of the many thousands of migrant workers who have silently shaped the city’s intensely mutable landscape into a vision of gleaming modernity.
Lately much of the world has been focused on China’s poor human rights record and controversial political alliances, while its workers have quietly carried out a ferociously ambitious building program in preparation for the impending games. Collier’s photographs offer a rare glimpse into the lives of these workers, capturing the routine of their existence in a spare, evocative style that feels unsettlingly intimate. Images of dormitory rooms and work sites are shown alongside rows of close-cropped portraiture, imbuing both with a profound sense of immediacy. As such, everyday objects like workers bike racks and empty stadium seats take on new meaning when seen in this context. Overall, Collier’s photographs tell a story larger than their individual subjects- that of a city, a country, and a culture in transition, waiting to be revealed to the world.
Half of all profits from the show will support Wokai, a pioneering Chinese Microfinance Nonprofit. To learn more about Wokai, please visit www.wokai.org
Benjamin Collier’s photographs were featured in The Photo Show at ATM Gallery in 2003 as well as in ATM’s I Love NY Art Benefit in 2001. His work has been shown in several solo and group exhibitions at Gallery Katz, in Boston, MA, and is included in the permanent collections of American Express, Brown University, Google, Wellington Management, and many private patrons. In addition, Collier’s documentary film, “Wooden Bats & Dusty Hands: The Grays” is currently showing on PBS.
Benjamin Collier was born in Massachusetts in 1978. He received his BA in Art-Semiotics, a dual concentration combining Modern Culture and Media with Visual Art, from Brown University in 2002 and is currently pursuing his MS in Strategic Communications from Columbia University. To see more work, please visit his site www.benjamincollier.com or his journalism agency www.worldpicturenews.com
Leigh Ross, Curator
