A pristine land has been turned into a new-city for rapid urbanisation.
China has been bullied and suppressed by other countries for hundreds of years, which could be the driving force for their rapid development in security, economy and living standards. Many lands in pristine condition were reclaimed and turned into cities. In addition, the so-called ‘Green-City’ according to the ‘Five Ideas’ the government’s policy, many centennial trees have been transplanted there from the forest hundreds of miles away.
Yan Wang Preston - “Xialiu stood an over three-hundred-year-old tree in all of its glory. At the time of Yan s visit, being coerced into moving so that a dam could be built in that location. Three months later, no trace of the village or the tree could be seen. It was sold for ten thousand American dollars to a hotel in the nearest large city, Binchuan. Yan found the tree, divested of all its branches and leaves and bandaged in plastic, inside the skeleton of the hotel, which was still under construction-like a living sculpture that has yet to become cognisant of its new surroundings. In China, the country where cities are springing up, transplanting nature is big business. In the photo series Forest Yan tracks down many uprooted creatures that are now in concrete deserts, once again questioning our sense of the meaning of homeland.”
New houses, skyscrapers, roads, bridges and transport networks are transforming in speed, but not trees. Therefore, transplanting old trees is the solution. But some couldn’t survive in their new environment, there aren’t enough surveys about the new climate and habitat which they are going... For many of us, we are taking granted on how a modern city would look. We all love greens. But we wouldn’t know what has been done to them before they are there, a lot of them weren’t there in the first place.
Society, economy and so to nature is growing together. This could be happening in every modern city around the world. Yan documenting the trees changed how I perceive our city. There are sympathetic emotions in her photos, as the trees stood in rolls, without leaves and covered in plastic bags...
