in 2009, the 3 gorges dam will have inundated hundreds of square kilometers in central china. born in a small town overlooking a tributary of the yangtze river, yang yi will see his hometown being submerged during the last phase of the project.
striking and haunting him even in his dreams, the bitter assessment left him no choice. he had to capture the remaining specters of the scenery that is soon slated to disappear forever, along with his roots and childhood memories.
employing mastery of both photography and digital techniques, yang yi shows us ghost towns engulfed by water, whose rare inhabitants, fitted out with masks and tubas, go about their daily occupations; they seem like wandering souls having assumed human bodies in order to restore life to their beloved village.
the strength of yang yi's pictures resides in the cult of memories: soon, bulldozers will destroy what is left, populations will be uprooted and relocated, water will flow everywhere and that small and lively town will become a quiet ruinous field. but still, it will survive forever in their collective memory.
No comments:
Post a Comment