Chinese watercolor and ink on Chinese paper
Over one million people lost their homes to build the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River. The 350-mile-long hydrologic project submerged hundreds of villages and archaeological sites—drastically altering landscapes long celebrated in painting and poetry. Borrowing the language of classical Chinese landscape paintings, Ji depicts debris, toxic clouds, floating weeds, and the skeletal ghosts of the departed to reflect on the destructive effects of these transformations. For the artist, who was trained in calligraphy, painting is a means of meditating on the land: “As soon as one picks up a brush to write, there is an immediate connection to an ancient way of understanding nature.”
216: Down to Earth, 2026
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Down to Earth
Gallery 216Today, new generations of architects worldwide are forging close relationships between built structures and the Earth’s surface. This approach sharply contrasts with that of their modernist predecessors from the early and mid-20th century, who intentionally raised living spaces from soil—then viewed as a source of humidity, insects, and disease.
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