Yang Yi

China

Uprooted

2008

Photographies

A ghost town, half-destroyed buildings falling apart and, attending to what looks like everyday activities, a few people: the dark images of Yang Yi are weaving the remains of Kaixian, his 1800 year old home town before it disappeared under the Yangtse River waters with the inhabitants wandering in the wreckage with masks and snorkels. Only the bubbles, coming out of them, indicate the city is now drowned under water.
The Three Gorges Dam in China is the longest in the world and will be the most important in regard to production capacity.
The ecological consequences for the fauna and the human impacts of the dam —over a million people displaced and the flooding of a high number of archeological sites— have created a huge worldwide controversies.
Yang Yi writes : It is difficult for me to talk of these different photographs. Haunting souvenirs always come back to my mind. A feel like freezing, down to the bones.

---

Biography

Born in Kaixian, Chongqing, China in 1971. Lives and works in Chengdu.
From 1993 to 2000, graphist designer in Chengdu. Co-founder of the advertising agency Lan Se Fei Yang in 2001. Studied photography at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2006-2007. Among his exhibitions: Uprooted, Paris-Beijing Photo Gallery, Pékin ; Mouvements mécaniques/Try Harder, Make Art Public in Canada: Montreal, Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa ; Slick Art Fair Paris, Galerie Dix9 in 2008 and Uprooted, solo exhibition at the Dix9 Gallery, Paris.