Fan

"I made these pictures while employed as an English tutor to one of China's most celebrated actresses, Fan Bingbing. The job took me all over China, to Macau and Hong Kong and Bangkok, travelling with the starlet and her entourage of assistants and sycophants. We stayed in luxury hotels, dined with media moguls and raced with police escort to single-song performances at soccer stadiums (Ms. Fan is also a noted pop singer). The opulence and spectacle of fame were shocking, but without a frame of reference her renown meant little to me. I came to recognize celebrity as the sum of its parts-an elaborate reality masking as humble performance." - Rian Dundon