ABOUT

The Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region is a remote province, 2,000 miles from Beijing. Drake visited many times between 2007 and 2013, staying in Uyghur villages and cities on the edge of the Taklamakan desert. The landscape changed on each visit – historic Uyghur neighborhoods, schools and mosques were being torn down and rebuilt as modern Chinese cities, a result of government development policy. More and more Han Chinese filled the streets. In 2009, there were riots in the capital of the province, and hundreds of people died. Uyghurs were not permitted to speak about it.

Uyghurs who carry on extended conversations with foreigners risk police interrogation. Meanwhile, some Uyghurs are opposed to artwork (including photography) depicting living creatures, since only Allah has the power to give life. Drake began to look for meaning at the intersection of Uyghur views and her own, and to seek ways to bring the people she was meeting into the creative process. Traveling with a box of prints, a pair of scissors, colored pencils, and a sketchbook, she asked willing collaborators to draw on, reassemble, and use their own tools on her photographs.

Looking for Uyghur approaches to storytelling, she also considered Uyghur music and literature. Among the works that stood out was Wild Pigeon, a story by Nurmuhemmet Yasin. An allegory of the Uyghur experience, it circulated widely after its publication in 2004, but it was met with disapproval by Chinese authorities. Yasin was sentenced to ten years in prison for inciting separatism and has since disappeared.