Lauren Greenfield talking at The Design Museum last night

Watch Lauren Greenfield at the Design Museum in London

See the photographer talk about why Generation Wealth is not just about the wealthy - but all of us

Perhaps more than any other photographer or filmmaker, Lauren Greenfield has captured a singular era in modern history - a period of rampant materialism and wealth obsession. Greenfield began photographing conspicuous consumption in LA in the early 90s and her photos were to prove prophetic as the practices and lifestyles she captured fanned out first across America, then the globe. 

In this clip from her talk with the Economist's Anne McElvoy at the Design Museum last night she explains why she thinks her Generation Wealth project and its resulting Phaidon book is applicable to all, a universal morality tale in which we're all pretty much complicit. 

 

"When you see the people in The Fall section (of the book) who get hurt by the crash, you see how widely people were mimicking these extremes," she says before adding: "I feel like the British think that they're not a part of this! I actually don't think it's extreme. I think that most people who look through the book and see the pictures and read the stories are going to see themselves."

We'll have more from last night's talk soon, and if you like what you see and hear in this short clip, there are over 650 eye popping photos and stories to be found in Generation Wealth here.