Matthew Niederhauser's involvement with Asia and photography first started in high school with four straight years of Chinese courses and late nights in the darkroom. Greatly inspired by his first language teacher's own dramatic background during the Cultural Revolution in China, he became fascinated with the country's expansive history and philosophical traditions and decided to spend a year living with a host family in Beijing from 2000 to 2001. This immersion into Chinese society further deepened his interest in the country and it's tumultuous history during the twentieth century. China was on the rise, and Matthew enjoyed the pace and sense of revitalization in Beijing. The end of his home stay also marked his first journey across Asia when he traveled overland from Beijing to Delhi.
After his first eleven months in Asia, Matthew began his studies at Columbia University where he immersed himself in the anthropology department and drew strongly from his first-hand experience with Chinese culture. It led to many more trips across Asia and, eventually, thesis research on urban development and the role of cultural tourism in integrating rural communities into central economic systems in western Tibet. During this period Matthew also began taking classes at the International Center of Photography in New York. After graduating from college in 2006, he split time between researching for the National Committee on US-China Relations and assistant teaching at the International Center of Photography before heading back to Beijing to begin his career as a fulltime documentarian and photojournalist.
Since then Matthew's work covering youth culture and urban development in China has appeared in the New Yorker, Time Magazine, the Washington Post, Photo District News and the Guardian Observer amongst others. He also just published with powerHouse Books a 175-page, hardcover book entitled Sound Kapital that covers his portraits and concert photography of Beijing's underground music scene. Otherwise, Matthew concentrates on a large-format, photo-documentary project entitled Visions of Modernity that investigates urban development and new architecture in Beijing. This is his main outlet for exploring the rapid changes in urban dwelling in China, and its effects on society and the environment.
In the future Matthew hopes to continue to travel across the breadth of China to complete a comprehensive project documenting ongoing urban upheaval in its various forms. A thoughtful mutual dialogue between China and the rest of the world is imperative at this point in time. Ideally, he hopes that his photography will allow viewers to appreciate and be inspired by the plurality of human experience in China today and how many of the obstacles they face are imperative to us all.
