PHOTOGRAPHS AND TEXT BY LISA ROSS
2005: The undulating patterns in the dunes went on for miles, mesmerizing in their conformity, perfect pencil-like lines, criss-crossing like a giant net over miles of dunes whose sole purpose was to shift with the winds and the earth. The dried reeds were pushed into the sands by hand, in perfect patterns, to hold back the desert so roads could remain clear and the travel from north to south and east to west could remain unfettered.
“Usually, the people have no choice, the government brings them out here from their village and they spend a month working on this project for food but no pay. They are told it’s for their homeland.” That is my memory of the words shared by my friend sitting next to me on the bus that day, who in 2017 would be disappeared and receive a 20-year prison sentence for the work which, for over a decade, earned her a PhD and an untold number of accolades. Folklore, or the preservation of Uyghur culture, was now considered a threat to state security.
2016: China’s state narrative in the Uyghur Region: “Manage the desert, build a more beautiful and civilized environment,” has affected local crafts carried out by men and women living south of the Taklamakan desert. Crafts people interviewed by a researcher who shall remain anonymous, explained how they earned enough to survive and take care of their families; however, their earnings were not recognized by the state as significant to the economy or society, and therefore they were categorized as “surplus labor.” In the case of some craftsmen, their livelihood was being replaced with “desert management.” The work was harder, the wages lower, and no end or sustainable future was in sight. Turning this work down would label one as “disloyal” and risk reeducation or imprisonment.
2022: Despite the desert control, nothing could hold back the winds swirling the sands that seemed to whisper the stories that needed to be told. The sublime beauty of the Taklamakan desert had the future scribed into it by an organic grid. Fifteen years later, thousands—possibly millions—were disappeared into reeducation camps and prisons, and eventually formed an involuntary factory labor force. Human re-engineering, surveillance cameras, facial recognition, and extreme policing would become the new grid overlaying the Uyghur Region.
Preventing desertification has innumerable benefits for the ecology and humanity, however, in the Desert Control series (2006), my focus was on an obsessive form of holding the desert back from main roads giving access for fast military and police control of the southern areas of the the Taklamakan, which historically are over 90% Uyghur population. As for the Khotan prefecture, in 2018, it had a 96% Uyghur population. ■