Located 100 kilometres west of Jiayuguan in Gansu Province, the China National Nuclear Corporation's (CNNC) Plant 404, known simply as Plant 404, was prepared in 1957 of the last century, and was made brilliant by the successful explosion of the first atomic bomb in 1964, which broke the nuclear monopoly and nuclear blackmail of the American imperial hegemony.
The idea of restoring 404 Nuclear City originally originated from a piece of GEO Vision's interview with 404's former resident Li Yang that I read many years ago. Growing up in a developed city on the eastern seaboard, I never imagined that there would be such an isolated city in the depths of the Great Northwest, at a time when there was once a nuclear war and collectivism prevailed in the Soviet Union before it was dissolved. The interviews about an "execution", the "moving" of the nuclear city after its abandonment, and how the narrator, Li Yang, was able to integrate into the normal society touched me so much that even today I am still shaken to the core when I read these words again,
"After I went to university and left the 404, I didn't know how to take the bus, I didn't know how to get on the bus and buy a ticket."
"I just observed and watched how other people rode the bus."
Born in the twenty-first century, we may not have a thorough understanding of what people at that time and place actually had in their lives and thoughts, but at the very least, and I don't care if I say it's not self-conscious, we want to understand them, even if it's just a tiny bit.
We want to recreate as much as possible the place that is no longer found on the map, the place where countless people have dedicated themselves, persevered, and even buried themselves under that land, their home.