Benjamin Li is a conceptual artist who works with photography, video, and sculpture to focus on questions of identity, representation, displacement, sense of belonging, everyday life, and foodways. In his recent practice, he investigates these questions through the Chinese-Indonesian restaurant in the Netherlands. Since 2014, he has accumulated an archive of photos, written memories, menus, and tableware from over 1,200 Chinese-Indonesian restaurants in the Netherlands. These archival materials are developed into various works and series. Li’s work focuses on teetering the line between bringing out the absurdity of certain stereotypes and reappreciating the beauty and heritage of the Chinese-Indonesian restaurant.
Li’s works have been shown at Nederlands Fotomuseum (Rotterdam, 2022), Museum Rijswijk (Rijswijk, 2021), Noordbrabants Museum (Hertogenbosch, 2020), Lisser Art Museum (Lisse, 2019), Allard Pierson Museum (Amsterdam, 2019), Stedelijk Museum Schiedam (2018), and Villa Mondriaan (Winterswijk, 2015). He was the artist in residency at Rijksacademie in 2022 and received the support of Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds in 2019 and the Spaces 10 Years prize in 2018.
Li currently lives and works in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
