BIO
Christopher Payne specializes in architectural and industrial photography. Trained as an architect, he is fascinated by design, assembly, and the built form. His first book, New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway, offers rare views of the behemoth machines hidden behind modest facades in New York City. Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals, which includes an essay by Oliver Sacks, is a journey through America’s abandoned state mental institutions. North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City, explores an uninhabited island of ruins in the East River, providing a glimpse into a city’s future without people.
Payne’s recent work has veered away from the documentation of the obsolete towards a celebration of American manufacturing and craftsmanship. Through the past decade, with personal projects and editorial commissions, he has been on a photographic journey to learn more about what’s made here: the traditional industries that “built this country” as well as the newest and most technologically advanced processes. These images can be found in his latest book, Made In America, published by Abrams in fall 2023.
EDUCATION
University of Pennsylvania, M. Arch., 1996
Columbia University, B.A. in Arch., 1990
BOOKS
Made In America (Abrams, 2023)
Making Steinway (Steinway & Sons/Benrubi Gallery, 2016)
North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City (Fordham University Press, 2014)
Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (MIT Press, 2009)
New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway (Princeton Architectural Press, 2002)
AWARDS
2015 - Photolucida Critical Mass Top 50
2012 - New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant
2010 - New England Book Show Award
2010 - Ken Book Award
2008 - New York Foundation for the Arts, Photography Fellowship
2003 - New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant
1999 - New York State Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant
1999 - Graham Foundation Grant, Individual Artist Grant
EXHIBITIONS
2022 - Asylum, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw State University, Kennesaw, GA
2022 - Image and the Photographic Allusion, Oakland University Art Gallery, Rochester, MI (group exhibition)
2018 - Brick by Brick, ArtsWestchester, White Plains, NY (group exhibition)
2018 - Germ City, Museum of the City of New York, New York, NY (group exhibition)
2018 - Teeth, Wellcome Collection, London, UK (group exhibition)
2017 - Water and Textile, La Manufacture, Roubaix, France (group exhibition)
2016 - Remedy, Arts Westchester, White Plains, NY (group exhibition)
2016 - The Island Variations, Sotheby's, Amsterdam, Netherlands (group exhibition)
2016 - Asylum, Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY
2016 - Asylum, Deborah Berke Partners, New York, NY
2015 - Asylum, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA
2014 - One Steinway Place, Vous Etes Ici, Amsterdam, Netherlands
2014 - Asylum, Wood County Historical Museum, Bowling Green, OH
2014 - Inside Steinway, Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, Kalamazoo, MI
2013 - White, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam, Netherlands (group exhibition)
2012 - Asylum, Het Dolhuys, Haarlem, Netherlands
2012 - One Steinway Place, Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY
2012 - Asylum, Museum Dr. Guislain, Gent, Belgium
2011 - Asylum, La Chambre, Strasbourg, France
2011 - Asylum, Pearlstein Gallery, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA
2011 - Picture Books, Clark Gallery, Lincoln, MA (group exhibition)
2011 - Asylum, Elmaleh Gallery, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA
2011 - Asylum, Martin Art Gallery, Muhlenberg College, Muhlenberg, PA
2010 - Asylum, Kennedy Museum of Art, Ohio University, Athens, OH
2010 - Summer Place, Bonni Benrubi Gallery, New York, NY (group exhibition)
2010 - Asylum, Clic Gallery, New York, NY
2005 - Changing Tides, Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance, New York, NY: (group show)
2003 - New York’s Forgotten Substations, New York Transit Museum, Brooklyn, NY
2001 - New York’s Forgotten Substations, Municipal Arts Society, New York, NY
SELECTED PRESS & FEATURES
2024 - Urban Omnibus - Design and Deploy
2024 - Dezeen - Twelve Scenes from America’s “Hidden” Industrial World
2024 - Architect’s Newspaper - Terra Cotta
2024 - Pennsylvania Gazette - The Making of Things
2024 - New York Magazine - Staten Island Ferry
2024 - New York Times - Inside the Massive Repair Shops Where Subway Cars Go For a Makeover
2024 - Scientific American - Chat GPT Brains Inside Robot Bodies
2024 - National Geographic - Step Inside the Factory where NFL Footballs Are Made
2024 - National Geographic - The Glass Age
2023 - Common Edge - Interview
2023 - WIRED - The Best Photography Books of 2023
2023 - The Daily Heller - The Beauty of American Industry
2023 - Popular Mechanics - Industrial Photography in ‘Made In America’
2023 - Wall Street Journal - Inside the Places Where America Makes Its Goods
2023 - New York Times Magazine - What Does the US Space Force Actually Do?
2023 - CNN - The Hidden Beauty Inside American Factories
2023 - New York Magazine - Domino Sugar Factory
2023 - Columbia Magazine - Christopher Payne Captures the Unexpected Beauty of American Factories
2023 - New York Magazine - Here Lies Love
2023 - Pop Sci - Inside GE Peebles
2023 - Monocle - Up In The Air (Issue 164)
2023 - Scientific American - Tiny Bubbles of Primordial Soup Re-create Early Universe
2023 - New York Times Magazine - A Visit to the Peeps Factory
2022 - CNN - How an Oscar Statuette Is Made
2022 - TIME - Inside the Making of the Military’s B-21 Raider
2022 - New York Times Magazine - Where Does All The Cardboard Come From?
2022 - Barron’s - Dream Boats: Wooden Speedboats Cruise Again
2022 - Popular Science - How Nuclear Subs Are Built
2022 - IEEE Spectrum - Electric Buses Take Charge
2021 - Popular Science - Bean Town
2021 - New York Times Magazine - How the $4 Trillion Flood of Covid Relief is Funding the Future
2021 - MIT Technology Review - Inside the Machine that saved Moore’s Law
2021 - New York Times Magazine - How to Build Roller Skates
2021 - New York Times Magazine - Has the Carbontech Revolution Begun?
2021 - Billboard - Inside A Vinyl Record Pressing Plant
2021 - Milieu - Factory Made
2020 - MIT Technology Review - The Factory Where Candy Gets Its Colors
2020 - INC Magazine - Spangler Candy
2020 - Popular Science - An Inside Look At How Fiber Optic Glass Is Made
2020 - The Daily Heller - Interview
2020 - The New Yorker - The Race to Make Vials for Coronavirus Vaccines
2020 - New York Times Magazine - How To Build A Guitar
2020 - New York Times Magazine - 20,000 Ballots An Hour, With Paper By The Ton
2020 - New York Times - How Giant Ships Are Built
2020 - The Atlantic - Industrial Motors, Made by Hand
2020 - WIRED - GOES Extreme Weather Satellites
2020 - Maize - On the Edge of Sound
2020 - Architectural Photography Almanac - Interview
2019 - Golf Digest - How the Business of Making Golf Balls Balls Saved Four Small Towns
2019 - INC - Bollman Hat
2019 - GEO - Hand In Hand Mit Der Maschine
2019 - TIME - Inside the New Race to the Moon
2019 - New York Times Magazine - The Making of ‘The Daily Miracle’
2019 - New York Times Magazine - The Daily Miracle
2019 - New York Times Magazine - What We Learned About Life and Work from Nine New Yorkers
2019 - New York Times Magazine - Still At It
2018 - TOPIC - On The Factory Line
2018 - It’s Nice That - Christopher Payne Shoots Colombian Sweets Factory for New York Times Magazine
2018 - This Is Colossal - A Sharp Look at the Surprisingly Complex Process of Pencil Manufacturing
2018 - New York Times Magazine - Sugar Works
2018 - Oculus - House of Bricks
2018 - Amtrak The National - The Made In America Issue
2018 - Port Magazine - Annin Flag
2018 - De Volkskrant - De Laatste Potloodjes
2018 - Capital - La Bonne Mine Des Crayons
2018 - Slate France - General Pencil
2018 - New York Times Magazine - Inside One of America's Last Pencil Factories
2017 - New York Times Magazine - Tesla's Dangerous Sprint into the Future
2017 - New York Times Magazine - Water War
2017 - Popular Science - The Last Great American Watchmaker
2017 - Bloomberg Markets - The Machine of Tomorrow Today: Quantum Computing on the Verge
2017 - New York Times Magazine - A Look Inside Airbus's Epic Assembly Line
2017 - Selvedge, Issue 75 - Made in USA
2016 - Don't Take Pictures, Issue 7 - Memory, Machine and the Illuminated Present
2016 - Change Over Time - Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals
2016 - Talking Textiles, Issue 1 - Labor of Love
2016 - Lenscratch - Making Steinway
2016 - New Yorker - Exploring the Lost Grandeur of New York City's Verizon Building
2016 - Digitalrev - The Beautiful Horrors of Abandoned Asylums
2016 - Smithsonian - Photographer Captures the Enduring Grandeur of the Steinway Piano Factory
2016 - Atlas Obscura - Behind the Scenes of NYC's Steinway Piano Factory
2016 - Business Insider - Asylum
2016 - Bloomberg Markets - Inside Wall Street’s Cloud
2016 - Ignant - Asylum
2016 - Creative Boom - Interview
2016 - Hyperallergic - Asylum
2016 - The Week/Captured - Asylum
2016 - Aesthetica Magazine Issue 70 - Asylum
2016 - Graindephotographe - Interview
2016 - BETA, Issue 19 - Textiles
2016 - Petapixel - Steinway
2016 - Lomography - Treasures Worth Saving: An Interview with Christopher Payne
2016 - This Is Colossal - A Photographic Celebration of America's Vibrant Textile Industry
2015 - Huffington Post - Technicolor Yarn Factory Photos Show Hope For American Industry
2015 - Feature Shoot - A Mesmerizing Look Inside America's Textile Factories and Mills
2015 - New York Times Magazine - Uber Would Like to Buy Your Robotics Department
2015 - Atlas Obscura - Inside the Colorful, Hypnotic World of Textile Mills
2015 - Vanity Fair - See the Abandoned and Inaccessible Island Where Typhoid Mary Died
2015 - Planches Contacts 02 - Asylum
2015 - WIRED - The Weird Tech and Brilliant Colors of the American Textile Mill
2015 - Boston Globe - Asylums abandoned, bodies unconstrained
2015 - Feature Shoot - Interview
2014 - The John Adams Institute - Interview
2014 - WNET Channel 13 - Metrofocus
2014 - Design Observer - The Last Unknown Place in New York
2014 - The New York Times - Lonely Island
2014 - BBC News - Video Interview
2014 - ABC News - North Brother Island
2014 - Petapixel - North Brother Island
2014 - Smithsonian - Exploring New York City's Abandoned Island
2014 - Slate - The Mysterious New York City Island You've Never Heard Of
2014 - Curbed - Payne Uncovers Disappearing Places
2014 - FStoppers - New York City's Mysterious Neighbor
2014 - Gizmodo - Exploring the Decaying Ruins of North Brother Island
2014 - Untapped Cities - North Brother Island Book Review
2014 - The New York Times Magazine - Isle of No Man
2014 - Mail Online - Still Made in the USA
2014 - Gizmodo - Inside the Colorful Chaos of America's Aging Textile Mills
2014 - My Modern Met - Former Architect Shows Untold Beauty Inside America's Textile Industry
2014 - The New York Times Magazine - Fruits of the Loom
2013 - Urban Omnibus - North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City
2013 - The New Yorker - Photobooth
2013 - Esquire Magazine Russia - Steinway
2013 - Modem - Steinway
2012 - Urban Omnibus - Disappearing Histories
2012 - Untapped Cities - Inside the Steinway Factory
2012 - Elle - Steinway Exhibit
2012 - The New Yorker - The Making of a Steinway Piano
2012 - Lebbeus Woods - Inevitable Architecture
2012 - Design Bureau - Photographing Mental Asylums and Textile Factories
2012 - The New York Times Magazine - The Steinway Way
2011 - The Atlantic - Inside the Haunting World of 19th Century Mental Hospitals
2011 - National Public Radio - America's Asylums in Photographs
2011 - TLS-Times Literary Supplement - Book Review, 4/22/11
2011 - Frieze Magazine - Book Review, April 2011
2010 - The Athens News - Exhibit Review
2010 - Guernica Magazine - Asylum
2010 - The Wall Street Journal, Speakeasy - Lecture Review
2010 - Afterimage Magazine - Sanctuary or Prison?, Vol. 38, Issue 2, Sept/Oct 2010
2010 - Scope Magazine - Book Review, September 2010
2010 - American Photo Magazine - Falling Apart, Sept/Oct 2010
2010 - Zoom Magazine - Book Review, May/June 2010
2010 - The Architect's Newspaper - Exhibit Review
2010 - The New York Times - Exhibit/Book Review
2010 - Boston Globe - The Photographic Art of Insane Asylums
2010 - BOMB - Book Review, Spring 2010
2010 - The Atlantic - Book Review and Interview
2010 - The Pennsylvania Gazette - Architecture of Madness
2010 - New Statesman - Book Review
2010 - New Humanist - Book Review
2009 - Columbia Magazine - Ghosts
2009 - The New York Times - Emptied but Still Secret
2009 - The New York Times - The Lost World of Creedmoor Hospital
2009 - Scientific American Mind - Book Review
2009 - Amazon Omnivoracious - Best Books of the Year
2009 - Boston Globe - Getting Inside State Mental Hospitals
2009 - Preservation Magazine - A Terrible Thing to Waste
2009 - Dwell Magazine - Asylum
2009 - The New York Review of Books - The Lost Virtues of the Asylum, 9/24/09
2009 - The New Republic - Ruins of the Asylum, 9/23/09
2009 - The New Yorker - Asylum: A Photo Essay
2009 - The New York Times - Book Review: Asylum, 8/30/09
2008 - Print Magazine - The Last Run, 8/08
2008 - The Architect’s Newspaper - Lost City in the Woods
2006 - Architectural Record - Christopher Payne: Documenting before their demise
2005 - Psychiatric News - Rational Buildings Designed to Calm the Disturbed Mind, 9/05
2003 - ART News - Power Elite, 5/03
2002 - AJ [Architect’s Journal] - New York’s Forgotten Substations, 12/2/02
2002 - The New York Times - Vanishing Behemoths, 10/13/02
INTERVIEWS/VIDEO
2024 - Just A Good Conversation - Interview
2019 - CBS News - How Former Asylums Are Becoming New Homes
2019 - 99% Invisible - The Kirkbride Plan
2019 - The Photo Banter - Podcast Interview
2015 - LOOK3 Photo Festival - Textiles: Made in USA
2014 - WNET Channel 13 - Metrofocus
2014 - BBC News - Interview
2011 - NPR All Things Considered - Nation's Jails Struggle with Mentally Ill Prisoners
2010 - ABC Radio National, By Design - Asylums: A Look at Their History Through Design
2009 - University of Texas School of Architecture - Fall Lecture Series
2009 - New Hampshire Public Radio - Among the Ruins
2003 - New York Transit Museum - New York's Forgotten Substations