2009 - 2010 / Qi Lihe sits on the outskirts of Lanzhou, a heavily polluted industrial city in Northwestern China. It is home to thousands of migrant families who left their homeland within the Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture, searching for job opportunities and ultimately, a better life. For hundreds of years the Hui and Dongxiang Muslim minorities farmed the arid land surrounding their ancestral villages. However, desertification was deeply effecting the landscape and life had become too difficult for many, forcing those who could, to migrate to the provincial capital in order to survive.
