©Elizabeth Li, Edge of the Long River, Somewhere along the Yangtze, a farmer turns towards home.

I often hear from strangers and that’s how I discovered Elizabeth Li, who told me she was working on her own long term project. I was absolutely stunned by the beauty of her images and her commitment to learning more about her ancestral history, and I knew I wanted to introduce her to LenScratch subscribers. She is a data scientist who has never taken a photography course and has never entered a photography competition. She has been drawn to photography ever since her parents brought home a DSLR when she was 10 years old. Elizabeth learned how to use a camera by watching YouTube tutorials in middle and high school; in college she was a member of a fashion club, where she learned from collaborating with other creative people. For the photo series here, she worked with a few mentors. 

I think it’s fitting that Elizabeth’s first photo feature is on her birthday, which is today. Happy birthday Elizabeth!

©Elizabeth Li, Old Fengdu City, My grandmother’s hometown, reduced to grasslands and fishing grounds during the low tide season.

Three Gorges

In the summer of 2024, I went looking for my grandmother’s hometown along the Yangtze River and found it underwater. Two decades prior to my arrival in China, the Three Gorges Dam was erected, serving as both a symbol of pride for the government and a great source of suffering for the people of Sanxia. Intended for flood control and increased electricity generation, the dam succeeded in its goals but at the cost of displacing 1.4 million people. Entire villages, towns, and cities were submerged, destroying full lineages of history. Twenty years later, the lasting impact of forced migration still radiates throughout the region.

For six weeks, I stayed with older residents of near-abandoned villages, holding on to hope amidst crumbling streets, and I talked to young city-dwellers, drawn to a techno-futuristic dream. From the throes of rural decline to the forefront of modernity, the stories I found in Sanxia spoke of dislocation, of memory stripped of its physicality. Every generation is experiencing a listlessness associated with place, but with nowhere to go home to. What happens when we can no longer trace our memories back to a place?

©Elizabeth Li, Fairies of Baolong, Two little girls walk home from a dance recital in Baolong Village.

Elizabeth Li is a photographer and data scientist, based in Brooklyn, NY. She is a graduate of the University of Chicago, where she studied computer science and sociology.

Though different in their nature, she sees images and data as parallel forms of inquiry, working in concert to examine identity formation across the life course. Grounded in familial memory and storytelling, her photographic practice captures moments where histories of passage, displacement, and belonging unfold over time.

More of her work can be found at https://lielizabeth.com/.

©Elizabeth Li, Fairies of Baolong II, Two little girls walk home from a dance recital in Baolong Village.

©Elizabeth Li, Baolong, A man steps from his doorway in Baolong Village.

©Elizabeth Li, Livestream, Two women livestream from a scenic point.

©Elizabeth Li, Yunyang I, What remains of human life in Yunyang Village.

©Elizabeth Li, Yunyang II, An older woman who recently moved to Yunyang, unable to afford rent elsewhere.

©Elizabeth Li, Chang, A mostly deserted village at the foot of a mountain.

©Elizabeth Li, Kulmen, A family opens their door to me in Dry Kuimen.

©Elizabeth Li, Edge of the Long River II, Our boat leaves three farmers at the river’s edge.

©Elizabeth Li, Three Gorges Dam, The Three Gorges Dam, from behind.

©Elizabeth Li, Qingshi Mountain, Aross the water from Qingshi Mountain.

©Elizabeth Li, Caress, Father and daughter, taking a break on the path to Peach Mountain.

©Elizabeth Li, Donkey at Dusk, A donkey waiting, the tide coming in.

Sara Bennett, a contributing editor to Lenscratch, is a 2024 Guggenheim Fellow. Her first monograph, Looking Inside: Women with Life Sentences (Kehrer Verlag 2026), is available for pre-order here.