CHINA WEST
2013-2015
In October 2012 the china pacific construction group started leveling 700 hundred mountains, in a project to expand by 500 square miles the western city of Lanzhou, in the Gansu province. This controversial multi billion-dollar project is part of the fifth national development zone, aimed at increasing the regional GDP to 33 billion by 2030, which would make it the fastest growing area in the world.
The northwest provinces, bordering the Xinxiang desert and Inner Mongolia, are a new eldorado for investors. Lanzhou, strategically located on the yellow river, at the crossroad between eastern and western china, was already a major commercial hub on the historic Silk Road. It is also at the heart of a vast industrial area, and has been critized for being the most polluted city in the country. Is the starting point of China West, a journey that explores the urban and environmental mutations of western china. A land in revolution, in which cities are built at a staggering pace, and countryside deserted by its population.
This project that started in the Gansu province explores large territories going from the Sichuan province in the south to Inner Mongolia in the north, crossing the provinces of Chongqing, Qinghai, Ningxia, and the western part of Shaanxi. The itinerary was nearly improvised guided by the idea of remaining on the border that separates nature and urbanization