Samantha Culp

Flying Bird from Samantha Culp on Vimeo.

“It returns the child’s eye to the retinas of men. Emerging from subway, [taxi] or even hydrofoil, the visitor to the [Shanghai Expo 2010] feels that he is in a special world, full of runaway pylons, impossible cantilevers, and buildings that look like flowers or accidents of flowing lava.

Is it the future? Not exactly.”

This John McPhee surveying the 1964 New York World’s Fair in his essay “Fairs: The World of Already,” but he could just have equally been describing the Shanghai Expo. Some photos from the still-unfolding, barely-comprehensible spectacle.

Slideshow of May 1 (on Flickr):

Slideshow of May 2 (on Flickr):

The start of the Year of the Tiger was icy but beautiful in Berlin… Full set here.

At Shanghai’s Hongqiao airport, there are now baskets of free lighters to greet arrivals passengers who undoubtedly had their lighters confiscated before their flight. I had a hard time choosing, but finally settled on a hot pink clear one inscribed with the legend, “punchtobacco”.

[Tokyo, Japan]

Since Beijing was preoccupied with military parade mania over the October holiday, it seemed like a good time to escape to Tokyo.

Full set here.
Bonus: learn Chinese from an animated panda on Japanese television.

My rambling notes from the week of SHContemporary are up at Artforum China; read the full article online here or in the vault. They didn’t end up using all of my pictures, however, so here are a few extras below…

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(Opposite House Blog, Sep 2009)

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Where was I during the longest and most complete solar eclipse of my lifetime? On the Bund, in a rainstorm. If we didn’t see the sun, at least we saw the darkness.

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(Basel, Switzerland)

Click here for full set.

So we went to Xinjiang.

Click here for full set.

(Hong Kong)

Wandered around ART HK 09 (lamely attempting to play paparazzi for Scene & Herd), saw friends, drank on rooftops, went to the track… the usual.

Full set here.

(Artforum Online, May 2009)
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“No Dabbling.”

[Sign on decorative waterfall/pond, PVG Airport, Shanghai]

One of the first days of my trip, my friend Connelly sent me a link to a Bangkok Post story about how the “head of a foreigner” had been found dangling from the Rama VIII bridge. Out of this gruesome tragedy, the line that struck me as somehow blackly funny was: “Investigators do not believe he took his own life.”

I later realized that on a trip in 2007, I had hung out for an entire afternoon under this same bridge while some friends were filming. It was lovely – fried fish from the barbecue stand, little dogs and teen skateboarders zigzagging past each other, and at 6pm sharp, the requisite group aerobics. (more…)

This cough syrup is sold over the counter in every 7-11 and Family Mart in Bangkok.

When I lived in Hong Kong, the flight to Don Muang (and then Suvarnabhumi) was a frequent and familiar one… but since moving up north, far less easy to wrangle. Luckily I got to head back for a bit recently. I didn’t realize how much I had missed it.

Beijing was still covered in snow when I left, and grey when I returned. Just like “The Wizard of Oz,” BKK remains the Technicolor in the middle.

Full photo set here.

Full set here

As my last spurt of journalistic productivity before going on my present “sabbatical,” I have two pieces in the current issue of Theme Magazine (NYC). One is on Beijing band “Ourself Beside Me” (also known as “Ourselves Beside Me”; there is no definitive right spelling and I suspect the girls prefer it that way); the other on Thai television show “Dreamchaser.”

Profile: Ourself Beside Me, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!

Theme: Dreamchaser, Theme Magazine, Issue 17, Nov/Dec/Jan 2008/2009 Eureka!

(Theme Magazine, Dec/Jan 2008/2009)
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IMG_0605, originally uploaded by New Territories.

My dream apartment in 1963 Vientiane.
Basically when not with the video crew, I just walked around this tiny, adorable capital taking pictures of old sixties buildings and eating croissants. How colonial!
More here:
http://flickr.com/photos/samanthaculp/sets/72157604824954350/

(Bidoun Magazine, Summer 2007)
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(Reprint, Asia Sentinel, Dec 2006)
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(South China Morning Post, Sep 2006)

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(Gridskipper, 2005-2006)

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(The Standard, Apr 2006)

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(The Fanzine, Jul 2005)

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(Shift, Jul 2005)
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(WAKE, Spring 2003)

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