Nebraska Wesleyan's Elder Gallery will showcase the work of photographer Benjamin Rasmussen in the exhibition, The Good Citizen. This exhibit asks the questions, "Who was freely invited into this space and who wasn’t? In what ways are the ripples of our past seen in our present? How can we engage more honestly with our history?"
The Good Citizen explores how American society came to be what it is today. Over a period of eight years, photographer Benjamin Rasmussen traveled to 43 states and photographed over 500 people as he investigated the impact of the country’s complex history on contemporary society.
In the book version of The Good Citizen, Rasmussen’s photographs are combined with essays by Frank H. Wu and collectively they seek to provoke thought and conversation around the complicated nature of American identity.
Benjamin Rasmussen was raised in the Philippines by an American mother and a Danish father. His practice looks at community identity, and specifically how it can be disrupted by factors such as civil unrest, war and natural disaster. Previous projects have centered on Syrian refugee communities in Jordan, the aftermath of a typhoon in the Philippines and his own childhood split between three continents. Now based in the U.S., he works with Time, The New Yorker and Vanity Fair, among other publishers.
The exhibition opens November 3 with a reception held from 5–7 p.m. in Elder Gallery located inside the Rogers Center for Fine Arts at 50th Street and Huntington Ave. Rasmussen will also host an artist talk November 2 at 5:30 p.m. in Lucas Hall, room 206. Gallery hours are Tuesdays 10 a.m.–6 p.m., Wednesdays and Fridays 1–6 p.m., Thursdays noon–4 p.m. and Saturdays and Sundays 1–5 p.m. The last day for the exhibition is December 16, 2023.