Maximilian Prüfer: Fruits of Labor

An artistic meditation on Mao's destruction of natural habitats in China to make way for agricultural expansion

German artist Maximilian Prüfer (born 1986) documents the manual pollination of fruit trees in the Szechuan Province of China, a process necessitated by the wide-ranging ecological ramifications of Mao's campaign to "Destroy the Four Olds," which entailed the killing of around two billion sparrows.