Tim Franco

The construction of China’s Three Gorges dam, the largest hydro-electric power station in the world, meant relocating over a million people as the land they lived on at the time would be consumed by swelling reservoirs. A great number of those farmers, villagers, and small-town residents were suddenly thrust into Chongqing, a heaving industrial giant carved up by rivers and mountains. Hundreds of thousands of residents—young and old alike—had to find out how to exist in a city when many of them had never been to one before. And Chongqing’s population skyrocketed, to over 30 million people. Metamorpolis is exploring the effect of ultra urbanisation and its social impact. The photos, taken over a few years, are looking at how a largely rural population is struggling to find its spaces into a fast developing megapolis. The photographs are looking at the conflicts between the concrete urban rise and the nature and how its inhabitants are using the spaces they are left with.