NEW YORK, NY.- Photographer Noah Sheldon’s Shanghai Tower project shines a light on the construction of China’s tallest skyscraper and some of the hidden people who made it happen. Noah’s images have now been beautifully brought together in Shanghai Tower, a photo book jointly produced with Tea & Water Pictures.
Hired to produce architectural photos of Shanghai Tower, at 632m one of the tallest buildings in the world, Mr. Sheldon also started to capture the migrant workers behind the project, taking a different approach on how other people photographed construction sites and architecture in China. The country’s labour force is a topic close to Mr. Sheldon's heart and he feels that too often the individuals, who come in big packs from villages to work, are reduced to mere masses. Mr. Sheldon's photographs shine a light on the construction of China’s tallest skyscraper as well as the brave, tireless and often hidden people without whom it wouldn't be possible to be built.
“The [security] minders really didn’t understand why I was interested in taking these photos, they were uncomfortable with it,” he says. “So to get the portraits I showed up on a day when I wasn’t supposed to be there and waited outside the gates when everyone finished work. It was an amazing experience.” Mr. Sheldon says he was struck by the pride and physical courage these workers displayed working at such extreme heights.
Today, Shanghai Tower looms over the city as a futurist symbol, standing on what used to be just swamp land not that long ago. It claims to be the world's greenest skyscraper, awarded an LEED platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.
Noah Sheldon is a photographer and filmmaker based in Shanghai and New York. He has worked with clients such as Apple, ARUP, Bank of America, Citibank, Fendi, GE, Louis Vuitton, Nike and Zaha Hadid Architects. Noah’s editorial work appeared in numerous publications worldwide, including Wired, Financial Times, Rolling Stone, California Sunday, Departures, Chinese Vogue, Modern Weekly, Nowness. His photographs have been exhibited in galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad, including The Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia; MoMA PS1, New York and The Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing to name only a few.
"Mr. Sheldon is skilled at separating beauty from the material world while reminding us that it is just about everywhere. He makes his quietly ecstatic art out of almost nothing, or, more accurately, several almost-nothings, carefully juxtaposed. Mr. Sheldon’s work sharpens the senses without seeming to demand much of them. It makes us aware of the way the world reverberates into art and art reverberates back, bouncing off everything in the immediate vicinity." ROBERTA SMITH from a review in The New York Times
