RAS LECTURE
Tuesday 18th October 2011 at 7.00pm
Tavern, Radisson Plaza Xingguo Hotel 78 Xing Guo Road,Shanghai
兴国宾馆上海市兴国路78号
MATTHEW NIEDERHAUSER
COUNTERFEIT PARADISES: YOUTH CULTURE AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT IN CHINA
Hedgehog poses in the back room of D-22 after a riotous concert.
A new wave of Chinese musicians is taking Beijing by storm. Revolving around four venues spread across the city, this burgeoning group of performers are working outside government-controlled media channels, and in the process, capturing the attention of the international music community. They now constitute a fresh, independent voice in a country renowned for creative conformity and saccharine Cantonese pop. Photographer Matthew Niederhauser captured the energy of this innovative orgy gripping Beijing's music underground in his book Sound Kapital which features portraiture and concert photography of Beijing’s underground music scene.
Two other ongoing projects will be illustrated, “Visions of Modernity: China's Gilded Age" and "Counterfeit Paradises", investigations of mega block urban development and concomitant consumer trends. Matthew's photography investigates the darker sides of this unprecedented explosion in wealth creation and infrastructure development.
A woman sits in a state of reverie in the wave pool at the Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing, China.
Matthew first studied Chinese in high school where he was greatly inspired by his teacher's experience during the Cultural Revolution and quickly became fascinated with the country's history and philosophical traditions. After spending a year with a host family in Beijing in 2000, he commenced his studies at Columbia where he immersed himself in the anthropology department and wrote his thesis on urban development and the role of cultural tourism in integrating rural communities into central economic systems in Tibet. He then continued his work researching for the National Committee on US-China Relations and assistant teaching at the International Center of Photography in New York. Since then his work on urban development and youth culture in China has appeared in The New Yorker, Time Magazine, The New York Times and The Observer amongst many others.
Entrance: RMB 30.00 (RAS members) and RMB 80.00 (non-members) those unable to make the donation but wishing to attend may contact us for exemption, prior to the RAS Lecture Series. Membership applications and membership renewals will be available at these events.
RSVP: to RAS Bookings at: bookings@royalasiaticsociety.org.cn
Workers pass in front of megablocks in Ordos, Inner Mongolia