I recently came across the work of photographer and artist Nadav Kander, and was instantly drawn to his Yangtze River series of photographs. There is an intense, yet ethereal, layer of loneliness and quiet poetry in the vast space depicted in these images. Loneliness particularly in the emptiness, colour scheme, and feeling of displaced human condition/ disconnectedness with nature for the people living along the river. Quietness albeit the industrial development which is clearly in progress along the Long River of China, shown in these photographs. Curiously and alluringly, instead of the peacefulness and tranquillity that is often associated emotionally with vast, empty spaces (here Kander echoes beautifully with the Chinese aesthetic concept of 留白 liu bai—literally “leaving blank”), one senses unrest and unease, which perhaps fuels certain undercurrent revolution. As Peter Nitsch puts it, “River is the metaphor for constant change.”
Nanjing IV, Jiangsu Province
Mouth I (Wusongkou, where river meets sea), near Shanghai
Three Gorges Dam II, Yichang, Hubei Province
Changxing Island I (Island of Oranges), Shanghai
Mouth IV, near Shanghai
Three Gorges Dam V, Yichang, Hubei Province
Wu Gorge, Hubei Province
Xiling Gorge I, Hubei Province
Xiling Gorge IV, Hubei Province
New Fengdu (looking at Old Fengdu), Chongqing Municipality
Chongqing XI, Chongqing Municipality
Qinghai Province II
Qinghai Province III
(all images from Nadav Kander's official website)
*Read more about Nadav Kander's Long River Series here and here.
These photographs somehow remind me of the beauty of loneliness, and a paradoxical sense of agitation which unfurl in Ravel's Tzigane, performed here by one of my favourite violinists Henryk Szeryng.
