A thick layer of grey ash covers the road leading to an industrial site. The air in the city is acrid and dense. Industrial plants and factories loom out of the haze and disappear once more as one travels beyond the city. Further into the mountains there are sounds of explosions as workers use dynamite to extract limestone for the steel plants. In another valley, not too far away, miners go deep into a pit shaft in the early hours of the morning.

    China's economy is exploding and behind the scenes of this ‘economic miracle’, helping to build and sustain it, is an industrial revolution powered by cheap labour and driven by an insatiable need for coal. Coal for electricity, coal for steel, coal for cement: coal is the fuel on which China’s economic juggernaut runs.

    Dark Clouds is an intimate journey into some of China's most industrialised cities; an exploration of the darker side of the economy’s bright, shiny facade. Over the course of two winters and numerous trips to northeastern China, Teh portrays the daily lives of the people who are most affected by the coal industry. Though the residents and miners stand out against these dark, wintery landscapes, they remain anonymous beings, only a small portion of a vast population of labourers. Dark Clouds offers a glimpse of another life and another rarely seen world.

Dark Clouds - 01, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 02, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 03, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 04, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 05, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 06, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 07, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 08, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 09, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 10, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 11, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 12, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 13, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 14, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 15, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 16, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 17, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 18, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 19, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 20, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 21, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 22, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 23, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 24, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 25, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 26, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 27, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 28, Ian Teh

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Dark Clouds - 29, Ian Teh

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