Christopher Anderson: Approximate Joy

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Christopher Anderson’s photographs portray a contemporary China in the midst of perpetual reinvention.

"I have seen the future and it is now and it is China. There is no need for the past. It can be erased. A new happiness is being constructed, an approximation of joy, better than the real thing.” - Christopher Anderson

The images are tightly cropped and extremely close up, bringing the viewer to an intimate distance where all context is removed, except for the ambient artificial light that illuminates the faces, giving only the sensual information of the physical form allowing  the viewer the indiscreet pleasure of staring at another human  face and wondering who the individual might be or what they might be thinking about at the  moment of the photograph. These photographs are not a documentary about what people do. Rather they are a search for connection and recognition of self.

Christopher Anderson is a member of Magnum Photos. He first gained recognition in 1999 when his poignant images of the  rescue of Haitian refugees taken onboard a sinking wooden boat named the “Believe in God” won him the Robert Capa Gold Medal.