Wang is a photographer who has documented the ring of landfills encircling the capitol city in various multimedia projects. He has visited hundreds of festering dumps, some legal, others not. Yet, environmental controls appear nonexistent regardless of the site’s status. In at least one instance we see raw untreated sewage openly dumped in broad daylight, without even a pretense of subterfuge.
Literally muckraking, Wang shows some pretty gross images at times, but they are undeniably effective (though the shot of a cast-off Chinese flag surfacing amid the rubbish is almost too perfect.) He lucidly explains the scope and implications of the waste issue, as well as the government corruption that allows it to continue unchecked. Wang also persuasively argues China’s nouveau riche will not be immune to the problem, pointing to the heavily polluted Wenyu River, for which a district of golf courses and horse stables was named.
Though he treats the hardscrabble scavengers picking through garbage landscapes with unfailing respect, Wang never romanticizes them as heroic recyclers, unlike Mai Iskander’s problematic Garbage Dreams. Unfortunately, he never offers any solutions either, dismissing the incineration option rather arbitrarily.
