New Landscapes – Passing Spring at the Ancient Dock and New Landscapes & Mountain Pasture with Floating Clouds

Yao Lu - New Landscapes – Passing Spring at the Ancient Dock and New Landscapes & Mountain Pasture with Floating Clouds

• 2006 and 2007
• Photographs
• Currently on display

• Location: Making the Modern World, ground floor of the Science Museum

Ten Climate Stories is a series of interventions that reveals hidden stories behind some of the Museum’s best-loved exhibits, as well as showcasing artworks from established and emerging artists. It takes a long view of our climate changing world, offering a fresh take on historic inventions and everyday objects, and their impact on the world around us.

At first glance artist Yao Lu’s photographs look like traditional Chinese landscape paintings. But closer inspection reveals these beautiful landscapes to be towering mounds of rubbish covered in green netting, receding into the distance as far as the eye can see.

Around a thousand years ago Chinese artists created emotional paintings of their natural surroundings whilst also conveying their social, philosophical or political convictions within the imagery.

The process of industrialisation has brought about a massive global change to the rate we consume and discard products. Yao Lu’s digitally manipulated photographs are a response to the long-term impact our actions have and the new unstable landscapes we create as a result. His images suggest a yearning for the lost idyllic landscapes of the past as we adapt to these changes.

About the artist

Chinese artist Yao Lu (born 1967) is a photographer who lives and works in Beijing. In 2008 he won the BMW Paris Photo Prize for contemporary photography.

• Yao Lu's gallery website

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