The original proposal was to travel to these places and collect narratives of ecological myths, practices, histories, associations and/or material objects from the areas. The intention was to archive these in the form of a ‘Green Book,’ that was produced collaboratively with the locals; however, throughout the research process the team were surprised by the prominence of the dam upon the people’s lives, especially in Chungthang.

The general mood was that the dam provided various opportunities for the community and the best had to be made of it. The problem with this approach as outlined early on was the general neglect of ecological awareness in the area. The collective felt it was a pointless task to search for stories that did not exist and rather decided to try and capture the intangible changes that were taking place, as a consequence of these projects. A sense of unease and anxiety was perceived by the artists in these areas and amongst the local community — it was almost as if people were not entirely sure what was going on around them and how these changes were impacting their lives. They felt that the ephemeral nature of this transformation – intangible yet faintly palpable – needed to be spoken about. Understanding this anxiety became an integral part of the project and the social and artistic interventions and considerations of the area. The idea of a ‘Green Book’ thus readapted itself into a catalogue of their own impressions – impressions that were gathered primarily through conversations with people who belonged to the area and through photographic documentation in the Chungthang and Dzongu areas.

Through conversations with the local people, it was realised that ecological histories in the area had corroded over time. Almost everyone who was involved in the project was also involved in the dam in some way or the other. Young men did petty contractual work for the company; women became labour contractors for the site, old settlers of the town watched from the peripheries having been given monetary compensation in lieu of their land. Despite the general spirit of acceptance towards the dam, there was also a degree of unease and anxiety regarding the transformation that the town was undergoing.