Nadav Kander: Yangtze, The Long River

Nadav Kander is perhaps best known for his high-profile portraits of politicians, film stars and musicians, but his latest monograph examines the lives of the anonymous millions who live along the banks of the Yangtze river in China.

Yangtze, The Long River is a document of a country in flux, changed and scarred by development on a scale never before seen. The images reflect the photographer's own sense of dislocation, as well as that of the millions of migrant labourers who make their living working on the many construction projects which constantly spring up along the river's banks.

The biggest of these projects has been the massive Three Gorges Dam, an incredible feat of engineering which has nevertheless irrevocably changed the landscape of the Yangtze, flooding over a thousand towns and forcing more than a million people to relocate. From Kander's text:

“Although it was never my intention to make documentary pictures, the sociological context of this project is very important and ever-present. Do we have to destroy to develop? The scale of development in China has left most places unrecognisable. Many Chinese will never be able to visit the places where they grew up, because they no longer exist. China is progressing rapidly, and the landscape—both economically and physically—is changing daily. These are the photographs that can never be taken again.”

You can see the full gallery of images at NadavKander.com; a collection of information about Kander and links to his other works can be found at Wikipedia.

Via Booooooom