Bureaucratics Revisited

Bureaucratics Revisited is a fully revised, expanded edition of the highly successful and three-times-reprinted book Bureaucratics (first published 2008, Nazraeli). For that project, Dutch photographer Jan Banning undertook a unique global journey through the offices of civil servants. Over five years and across nine countries, he trained his lens on the largely unnoticed human face of bureaucracy.

The environmental portraits are defined by their square format (in the original series), frontal perspective, and deadpan clarity — each taken from the eye level of the citizen entering the office. The result is a subtle dialogue between the office as a formal representation of government authority and as the civil servant's personal (work) space. At once an anthropological study and visual poetry, Bureaucratics offers an ironic exploration of the administrative machineries that govern our societies while remaining largely hidden — and the people who inhabit them.

This new edition includes unpublished photographs from the original series, rare images from the early proto-series The Office (Mozambique), and work from later series — spanning twelve countries in total. In a new text, Banning reflects on the origins and "adventures" of this project.Bureaucratics has been exhibited in 45 museums and galleries across eighteen countries on five continents, acquired by prominent collections, and published in approximately twenty countries. It stands as a landmark of conceptual documentary photography.

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