Strip Billboard Inc with
are proud to present
"We Chinese" is the second online exhibition which will run from July through to September 2011 to coincide with the Ballarat International Foto Biennale. This series was also taken during Brauer's time in China.
For M. Scott Brauer "We Chinese" grew out of a curiosity to find out what Chinese people think about their country and their future. He observed that the media coverage and development of Beijing often raised questions about the direction of the government on the world stage. Few reports took into account the feelings of the Chinese people, instead making reference to the country as a monolithic actor without constituent parts. Brauer believes a countries trajectory through history cannot be mapped without careful consideration of the people. His project aims, in a small way, to develop a portrait of the country by looking at the individual people that make it up.
"I started the project as a way to respond to friends', families and strangers' questions about the global direction of China and their stereotypes of the people" Brauer says. "Should we be scared of China?", "Where is China headed?" or, broad assertions about the collective character of billions of individuals that make up the country. I aimed to give faces and voices to a small section of the Chinese people caught in the centre of historic shifts in the countries socioeconomic circumstances". Ordinary people are his subject for "We Chinese", people he sees caught in the middle of this unprecedented change.
"While the big story is the change itself, an important and often-overlooked aspect of modern China is what this cultural transformation means to the people and their future." Brauer says.
Biography
M. Scott Brauer was born 1982 in Landstuhl, Germany to American parents. He moved every few years with the military, but finished high school in Great Falls, Montana. Brauer is currently based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. He graduated with honours from the University of Washington with dual degrees in philosophy and Russian literature and language in 2005. In 2005 he interned at Black Star and VII New York, then worked for daily newspapers in 2006 and 2007: the Northwest Herald in suburban Chicago, and the Flint Journal in Flint, Michigan.
Brauer moved to China in 2007 to pursue freelance photojournalism, returning to the US three years later in 2010.
He is represented by Invision Images, Aurora Select, and On Asia. Brauer speaks and reads Russian and speaks Mandarin Chinese.
Clients and publications include: The New York Times, Fader magazine, the Wall Street Journal, Time Asia, That's Shanghai, 100Eyes, F8 Magazine, Epsilon (Greece), Vision magazine (China), Lufthansa, Bosch, Amity Foundation, Pfrang Association, Colorlines, World Magazine, Map Magazine (China), AM New York and XAOC magazine
Awards include: Grand Prix – Feztiv Art Shanghai 2010, Awards of Excellence (2) – The 2010 Visual Culture Awards, Honourable Mention – Sports Action – Atlanta Photojournalism Contest 2009, The Visual Culture Awards: Portrait Award of Excellence, Founder's Honours 2008.
Exhibitions include: Mapping the Flaneur – Collective Encounter at Format Festival 2011 (Derby, UK), "Giving Trees" presented by the Magnum Foundation (NYC), "Scene on the Street" at Vermont Photo Space, Jue Art and Music Festival (Shanghai/Beijing), Feztiv Art at Art + Shanghai 2010, Visual Culture Awards exhibition 2010, Daniel Cooney Emerging Artists Auction 2010, Look3 Your Space 2009, The Gjon-Mili Award Exhibition (Prishtina, Kosovo) 2006, The Ian Parry Scholarship Award Exhibition (London, England) 2005.
