Three Gorges

In the heart of central China lie the Three Gorges, a series of majestic canyons through which flows the Yangtze River. In 2003 the Three Gorges Dam began flooding this area creating a reservoir the length of Lake Superior, covering hundreds of square miles of land and displacing 2 million people. Controversial in almost every aspect from its conception to its construction to the corruption associated with the resettlement program, the dam is the largest in the world and perhaps the most destructive and most dangerous.

From 2001 to 2003 photographer Bill Zorn made multiple visits to the area now flooded, carrying large format camera gear and staying in tiny villages and farmer's homes. His black and white images capture in exquisite detail the soul of a people wrenched into the 21st century and a landscape lost forever.

The 65 beautifully reproduced duotone images are complemented by an introduction by Dai Qing, a Chinese journalist with the courage to go to prison for her writing critical of the dam rather than be exiled from her native land, and by quotations and poetry from Chinese history evocative of the sense of loss and longing conveyed in the photographs.

"Three Gorges" is a powerful testimonial in the tradition of Sebastiao Salgado, Dorothea Lange, Sally Mann and Walker Evans and will have value for generations to come.