In 1994, the Chinese government dreamed of building the largest
hydroelectric dam in the world. It would span nearly a mile across,
tower 575 feet above the world’s third-longest river, and
cost approximately $24 billion dollars.
But when they acted on their idea by initiating construction of
the Three Gorges Dam, the Chinese government willingly accepted the
project’s additional consequences, such as the partial
submersion of some of the Yangtze River’s most picturesque
mountains and cities, as well as the displacement of approximately
1 million rural Chinese citizens.
Photographer Linda Butler was lucky enough to capture the first
half of this construction and the land’s dramatic
transformation on film. Her black-and-white photography exhibit
“Yangtze Remembered: The River Beneath the Lake” will
remain on display at UCLA’s Fowler Museum until Sept. 4.
“I was looking for a new project,” Butler said
regarding her decision to explore China. “Usually it takes me
awhile to really fall in love with something, but when I saw the
Yangtze and realized the scope of the project, I thought it would
be an ideal project for me, especially once I recognized its
historical and political importance.”
Butler traveled back to the Yangtze River seven additional times
over the course of three years to document the project. Each time,
she became overwhelmed by the massive scope of the dam and the
significant topographical changes of the surrounding
environment.
“I have never seen an area change so quickly,” she
said. “Hundreds of bridges, for instance, were built during
the three years that I watched. Hundreds of miles of roads were
built. Whole cities were destroyed, and people moved to towns or
cities up on hillsides.”
But the construction of the dam altered more than the landscape
itself. It profoundly affected the Chinese people in many ways.
“The whole structure of their lives changed,” Butler
said. “Some people had to take all their belongings and move
hundreds of miles away in distant provinces where they
couldn’t even speak the language. It was just such an
upheaval and change.”
It took the perspective of an outsider to China like Butler to
collectively capture the struggle of the Yangtze’s destitute
inhabitants alongside the exquisite beauty of the river. Although
several of her photographs depict beautiful landscapes, others
convey the region’s high level of tension and its
citizens’ deep sadness and pain.
Yet the transformation has not yet reached its completion, and
will not until at least 2009.
“Even though the reservoir has flooded the area, it
hasn’t gone as high as it will go and so people are still
being moved as we speak, and other parts of villages are still
being destroyed,” Butler said. “I tried to capture the
social upheaval and the environmental devastation along the river,
or simple things that I found interesting, like the interior of a
porter’s home, or a whole crumbling apartment
building.”
Butler was struck so deeply by her experiences in China that she
decided to compile a book about the Three Gorges Dam,
“Yangtze Remembered,” with 101 of her photographs and
an extensive text, which she wrote in order to give her readers a
complete picture of the Yangtze from both visual and literary
perspectives. She feels excited to be able to share her work with
Los Angeles, and specifically with UCLA students and faculty,
because she trusts it will resonate with them.
“I think (the Fowler Museum) was interested in the
combination of the environmental issues and message of this, as
well as the connection with Chinese culture and the huge Asian
community in L.A. It was a good fit,” Butler said.
And even for those who aren’t familiar with the Yangtze
River, Butler believes it will alter their impressions of a strong,
industrial, powerful China.
“It eliminates some of the stereotypes of this megalith
Chinese society that’s sort of taking over the economy of the
world,” she said.
“Here, the people are still very rural, quite poor, and
are just struggling day to day.”