Alumnus brings photographer’s exhibition on state power to UChicago campus

Two years ago, University of Chicago alumnus Brian Ashby fell in love with a photo exhibit in Berlin.

Ashby was so taken by the 50 powerful images of low-level bureaucrats from all over the globe that he pushed to bring the exhibition to campus.

He succeeded.

"Bureaucratics" by Dutch photojournalist and fine art photographer Jan Banning is on display inside the new Harper Commons through Friday, June 11.

The photos "have a slow-burning effect," on students who repeatedly visit the Harper Commons space, said Ashby, AB '06, a Special Projects Administrator for the Committee on Southern Asian Studies and the South Asia Language and Area Center. "It's a really incisive way to look at state power."

Shot over several years in eight countries on five continents, Banning focuses on the anonymous civil servant. The subjects range from a junior police officer in Bolivia who does not have a phone, to a lone police officer in Russia's Tomsk province, who does not have a police car, a car of his own, or a bicycle.

Also part of Banning's exhibition are portraits of female state employees, including a woman who keeps files at the Department of Statistics of the Bureau for Immigration and Naturalization, in Monrovia, and a former singer and choir director, who now serves as secretary to the head of the financial department of Tomsk province's Facility Services.

Ashby received support for the exhibition from the University of Chicago Arts Council; the Center for East Asian Studies; the Center for East European and Russian/Eurasian Studies; the Center for Latin American Studies, the Center for International Studies; the Center for Middle Eastern Studies; the Committee on Southern Asian Studies; the South Asia Language and Area Center; the College; the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands; and the France Chicago Center.

Ashby is planning a Wednesday, June 2 panel discussion that will provide social scientists an opportunity to discuss issues surrounding bureaucracy. Also planned is an artist's talk by Banning on Thursday, June 3.

Banning "provides a picture of the bureaucratic state," said Ashby. "He's looking at the gatekeepers."