‘Take Your Seat’ asks: Is it possible for a wall to connect us?

Take Your Seat is a global photographic movement that shares the human stories that connect us all to each other, our planet, and our best selves. In every photograph, their red and white director’s chair serves as a symbol of the power of choice. Do we choose to embrace each other? Can we see past our surface differences and recognize ourselves through the lens of a shared humanity? We are the directors of our lives. Currently on exhibit at The Peninsula Hotel gallery and property in Beijing, Take Your Seat now shares one of its feature stories from their recent Beijing series . . . 

Our chair’s global message of unity wrestles with a puzzling question as we pack our gear into the trunk of our car: Walls, both metaphorical and physical, are built to isolate us. Yet this wall, perhaps the greatest one of all, extends an invitation that openly draws us in.

The weather report calls for rain. As the sun confidently rises overhead, Yuri, our ever-optimistic guide and driver, gestures to the welcoming sky and says, ‘It is never right.’ Our journey to The Great Wall begins with an observation true for all of us; predicting the weather is just as accurate in Beijing as it is at home.

Sun defiantly shining, we begin our journey. Yuri glides along a silken ribbon of highway that whisks us to the Wall in two hours. Gripping the hillsides like a mother dragon intent on never letting go of her earthly child, the Wall twists and turns, rises and falls, setting a course for a modern-day expedition that follows a path set millennia ago.

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