Research and Other Investigations from China

Happy Magic Water Park in National Geographic

Happy Magic Water Park in National Geographic

It is with great pleasure to announce that a photograph from the Happy Magic Water Park series is in this month’s issue of National Geographic. I have been meeting with editors at the renowned magazine for over a year, and although it’s just a double-page spread, getting into National Geographic was one of those markers I set for myself a long time ago and definitely dreamed about as a kid. Hopefully it will lead to a full feature with them in the future. Also, fellow INSTITUTE photographer Richard Mosse has a spread from his amazing series Infra, which Aperture just published as a monograph. In celebration, I returned to my Happy Magic Water Park material and pulled out some photographs that I have never shown before. Check them out below.

The Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing's Olympic Watercube

The Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing's Olympic WatercubeThe Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing's Olympic Watercube

The Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing's Olympic WatercubeThe Happy Magic Water Park in Beijing's Olympic Watercube

Happy Magic Water Park at ME Contemporary, Copenhagen

Cueva de Charles BrewerTubes wind around the ceiling at the massive Happy Water Park constructed within Beijing's Olympic Water Cube.

Tubes wind around the ceiling at the massive Happy Magic Water Park constructed within Beijing's Olympic Water Cube.Cueva de Charles Brewer

I was very fortunate to be approached by fellow MFA student, and established artist, Mathias Kessler to participate in a group show celebrating the opening of ME Contemporary‘s new and expanded space in Copenhagen. He was looking to pair up his Cueva de Charles Brewer photographs with some of my own for the exhibition. After some consideration it became apparent that my Happy Magic Water Park series would work particularly well, not just because of its artificial cave nature, but also because it reacts well with the beautiful orange hues of Mathias’ prints. Here is what the gallery had to say:

“Mathias Kessler has, in recent years, been using his camera to record nature from remote areas the average person rarely reaches. By relating to modern man’s domination over nature, the artist portrays areas that in the media are doomed to be infinitesimal: the icebergs, and areas where no man, certainly not modern, have actually been and where nature in its own right is far superior. In one such instance, lie these giant caves whose only access is from Mount Tepui’s vertical hillside. As a counterpart to these enormous, almost mythical caves, Kessler has invited photographer Matthew Niederhauser, whose recent projects investigate modern China, to exhibit photos of the Happy Magic Water Cube, Beijing Water Cube Water Park. The meeting between the artificially staged water park with its eerie blue color and KesslerĀ“s earth-colored cave photos creates a new reality that in an interesting and unintentional manner serves to reinforce their own story.”

I really wish I could be out there to see the exhibit. Apparently one of our sets already sold. If you are anywhere near Copenhagen please check it out and let me know what you think. Thanks again to Mathias for including me as well. Hopefully it will be the first of more collaborations.

Whimsical shapes prevail over the Happy Water Park constructed within Beijing's Olympic Water Cube.