The Kùbùqí Shāmò (Kubuqi Desert) is the seventh largest desert in China, a country in which twenty-seven percent of its land suffers from degradation. Now named the Kubuqi Ecological Restoration Project, the desert grows drought-resistant flowering shrubs. For this area, desert for hundreds of years, we can see, using otherwise operational images, how the transformation is proceeding, from the scale of the tree and the grid to the sky and the earth—and the continent, between. We begin with the image of the grid: it is the foundation of the dream of deforestation, and it is the unit from which we can begin to understand the ambitions for the forest, the rivers, the dunes, and the continent. The use of degradable material for sand barrier technology has helped transform hundreds of acres of the Kubuqi Desert into a series of green landscapes. What we propose is to amplify their initiative, one comprised of newly created units that can further explore the potential interconnectedness among existing and future grids and old and new technologies, seeking out possible new topographies. A Desert in Retreat learns from the past and the present, and it envisions future possibilities, allowing for conversations between people and nature.
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A Desert in Retreat
