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'Made In China' is a hardbound B5 book that was published in 2007 and launched that May at the Photographers' Gallery in London. It is a limited edition single print run of 500 copies and is hand-signed and numbered. It is priced at £15 inc. p&p. A few copies are still available. Please contact us for purchase enquiries.
In the year 2006, Beijing, the city of Kublai Khan, the Qin dynasty, the Forbidden Palace and the Great Wall of China prepares to host the next great Olympiad. This is the first time such an event will be staged in modern China. It will catapult this teeming metropolis into the future.
9,000,000 inhabitants try to lead normal lives while 10,000,000 square metres of the city have become a vast construction site. 148 kilometres of railways and subways as well as the fifth and sixth ring roads newly girdle them. Dusty, dirty, old Beijing is a city in waiting. This pollution capital of the world is on the brink of resembling the set from Bladerunner. Much of its charming unworldliness will undoubtedly disappear beneath forests of concrete.
The shroud of smog belies the city’s desire for modernity. It does, however, provide the backdrop for Mark’s quiet, obsessive, observational images. They peer back into Beijing’s past. No detail is left out. His panoramic photographs never try to disguise the truth. They are not stage managed to please the viewers’ aesthetic eye. He shows us everything. How real people really live. His fascination is for the fabric of everyday.
These images are proof that the minuteae of life is ultimately the most arresting.
Foreword - Mark Reddy