Three Gorges Dam Migration,

2010

The Three Gorges Dam project was first envisioned by Sun Yat-sen in 1919, when he was leader of the Kuomintang, the Nationalist Party of China. In sub- sequent decades, others also explored the idea of building a large dam across the flood-prone Yangzi River in Hubei province. These included the Japanese who controlled the territory in 1939, the Americans in 1944, and Mao Zedong in 1949. However, the project was only approved in 1992 and the dam completed in 2012. It was a tremendous feat of engineering, but it irrevocably altered the natural landscape, submerging countless historical and archaeological sites. The dam also forced the migration of millions of people who had lived in towns and villages on the banks of the river. Ji memorializes this exodus by depicting the residents who were compelled to depart as commingling with demons and spirits, imbuing the image with an uneasy and inauspicious aura.