Series: Three Gorges Series No.29; Humanism in China, No.337
Print Date: 2026
Location: Wushan County Town
Medium: Archival print
Edition: 3/12
For the artist, the Three Gorges is both his homeland and, in his own words, "half a lifetime in the Three Gorges, a lifelong struggle." Since the relocation campaign began in 2002, he has continuously documented the dramatic transformation of this geographical and cultural space through both photography and writing, creating a visual archive that brings together personal emotion, regional memory, and historical witness at the very moment his native place was on the verge of disappearance. With color that is rich yet restrained, and with a lyrical but unsentimental attention to reality, the series records the people, riverbanks, towns, and everyday scenes of the final years of the Three Gorges, reflecting the artist's profound understanding of homeland, migration, and historical upheaval. Works from the Three Gorges series have been exhibited at Guangdong Museum of Art, EPSON Gallery in Beijing and Shanghai, GUARDIAN GARDEN in Tokyo, the Lianzhou International Photo Festival, Shanghai Art Museum, and the National Art Museum of China. Multiple works from the series have also entered the collections of institutions including Shanghai Art Museum and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Yan Changjiang was born in Zigui, Hubei, and graduated from the Department of Journalism at Wuhan University in 1990. He now lives in Guangzhou. Working in both photography and writing, he has long engaged with social reality and regional memory, and is especially known for his influential Three Gorges series. He has received awards at the Pingyao International Photography Festival and the Lianzhou International Photo Festival, and was named "China Photographer of the Year 2020." His major publications include The Last Three Gorges, Three Gorges Diary, The Sound of the River, and I Came for This.