Flotsam Jetsam is a journey video that was produced in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River in China. The project regards landscape’s relationship to identity, particularly in the midst of extensive infrastructural changes at the Three Gorges site. The video details the process of fabricating a large submarine, its launch below the Three Gorges Dam with a crew of local actors, the submarine’s progress along the river and through the dam’s boat locks to the reservoir.

Along the journey various performances are enacted: dreams are recounted during a psychodrama session in a swimming pool, a theatrical play is filmed in a ship factory, and actors’ concerns about making this video are voiced. Inspired from a broad collection of sources including: Chairman Mao’s many swims in the Yangtze, Jules Verne’s “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea,” and current news accounts of China’s rapid economic development and related imaginaries of Asia’s modernization.

Flotsam Jetsam
1 channel HD video installation
David Kelley and Patty Chang
©2007

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