pdf - WassinkLundgren

16 Monday January 24, 2011
By Vera Penêda
B
eijing has the Great Wall, the
Forbidden City and finally
has its own Big Ben. Chinese
people stare, want a photo beside him
and timidly ask: “How tall are you?”
Dutch photographer Ruben Lundgren,
27, 6 foot 5 or 2 meters tall, became
known, slightly ironically as Lu Xiaoben (Little Ben Lu) due to the high
levels of “Chinese curiosity syndrome”
that surrounded him. Amused with
the amazement of people climbing
ladders for a photo with him, the
photography student decided “to be a
celebrity in China before graduation.”
He braved the streets dressed in a
“living ruler” suit and a camera for a
“high” investigation on cultural differences that grew into an exhibition, a
blog and a book.
PEOPLE
was closed for so long that the amount
of people who look different was quite
small. Beyond the big cities that sense
of strangeness towards difference
heightens. But I find open curiosity
and the desire to learn a nice habit.
Do you still put on the “living
ruler” suit?
I still have it!
First I made
a kind of
jacket but it
was weird
looking.
My
Why did you come to China?
I was studying photography in the
Netherlands and decided to work on
something different for my graduation
project. I had no connection at all with
China; just felt I had to come here. In
2006 I spent some time in Beijing
because of the Empty Bottles project
by WassinkLundgren [the collaboration between Thijs groot Wassink and
Ruben Lundgren]. I met more people,
made a lot of friends and started
thinking about a Master’s Degree at
the Central Academy of Fine Arts in
Beijing; I started in 2007.
What inspired the height project Lu
Xiaoben?
It was a solution to a situation I
found myself in. In China, people
often stare at me in the streets and
this made me feel uncomfortable. I’d
think: “I live here, I’m just like you.”
I realized that it didn’t matter how
much I worked on my Chinese or
got culturally immersed, the curious
glances would remain. Height isn’t
something that should make people
look at you but I guess that happens if
a very tall guy isn’t something you see
every day. Later I understood that it’s
truly Chinese to be so openly curious.
The height project came together as a
way to combine photography, explore
and learn about my new environment
and play with the perceptions of stardom and otherness.
Why did you call it Big Ben?
The literal translation into English – “Little Ben Lu” – doesn’t make
sense for people who don’t know that
Chinese people add the xiao to refer
to something cute and funny, thus the
English title Big Ben.
How many Chinese people posed
with you?
In the streets, markets, galleries,
everywhere...I’m afraid I don’t know. I
know many foreigners come to China
and are approached to take photos, but
I suppose my height added something
to it. Many Chinese people seemed to
think I was a nice subject.
What’s the project conclusion?
Photo wise, it turned out to be a
natural bond with Chinese people. I
guess the visual result is an interesting and a funny way to look at cultural
differences. The people’s reaction
might come from the fact that China
teacher Miao Xiaochun suggested I
make a whole suit. I’m social but the
thought of walking around in this
suit seemed really embarrassing. It
was made at a tailor shop behind my
house. I admit I didn’t like wearing
it but I quite like the result on the
photos.
What are the best photos in
this project?
The stills of “A girl in a
pink coat looking at me”
at the Pingyao (in Shanxi
Province) photo festival
depict a very shy girl
requesting a photo with
me; her friend is at the
back, giggling and running
away. Suddenly we’re in the
middle of a photo
shoot with five
or six cameras
pointed at us. This one and the photo
next to the Beijing lady in the market
fully show the soul of this project.
Was anyone taller than you?
I took a photo with Yao Ming at the
Wax Museum; he’s 2.26 meters. This
is the only photo with someone much
taller than me. The average Chinese
man is 1.7 meters but I have a photo
with a man a bit over 1.9 meters.
Did you ever feel angry or that
people were rude?
Sometimes it felt like people were
laughing at me but then I saw they’re
laughing at my height without mean
intentions. There’d be one rude person
in a 100, the rest were just curious.
What type of photos do you do?
WassinkLundgren projects are
about exploring our environment and
the different ways that people look
at it, at themselves and at you [the
photographer]. They stretch the
traditional limits of documentary
photography by playing with
image control and distance to
the subjects.
Tell me about your other
project related to Beijing?
Empty Bottles was a concerted look at the daily rituals of
refuse collectors in both Beijing
and Shanghai. The images
show passers-by who picked
up the bottles lying in front
of the view camera. The
Empty Bottles project
was integrated in
the We are the world
exhibit at the Three
Shadows Photography Center
in 2009 and
last year at the
World Expo in
Shanghai.
Photographer’s towering
ambitions are a big hit in
China

Beijing’s
Big Ben
What are your
future plans?
We [WassinkLundgren] finished
the Tokyo Tokyo book: Photos
of passers-by taken by two
people using two different
cameras at the same moment
from a different angle.
What photographers do you
look up to?
I like the huge, mysterious
photos of Xu Yong as well as Jian
Xiang’s, and Liu Zheng’s works.
British photographers Stephen
Gill and Martin Parr, and Dutch
Jaap Scheeren’s works are also
quite good.
What do you enjoy about
living in Beijing?
I made some good friends.
I’m never bored because the
many things that I don’t understand keep me motivated.
I always feel like there’s still
more to discover.
luxiaoben.blogcn.com/index.
shtml
www.wassinklundgren.com
Photo: Courtesy of Ruben
Lundgren
[email protected].
cn