Guiyu (贵屿) Town in China is known as the “world’s e-waste dismantling center,” processing electronic waste from around the world every day. E-waste contains a large amount of hazardous substances, posing a huge threat to the environment and human health.

In 2016, Alex Huanfa Cheng visited Guixi Town to conduct research and attempted to use it as the theme for a project. He discovered that although the local government had established an industrial park and introduced mechanized processing to reduce pollution, the rough reforms merely allowed a few individuals to monopolize resources without improving the working conditions for grassroots workers.

Many laborers from rural areas still dismantled circuit boards and extracted precious metals by hand without any protective measures. Despite the extreme toxicity of the work, the meager wages they earned remained their top priority.

Unfortunately, due to resistance from workers and obstruction by factory bosses at the time, Alex Huanfa Cheng was unable to continue the project. However, today, he is able to use AI to create a surrealistic visual project inspired by this experience — a form of ironic metaphor: as if, like in Hollywood superhero movies, ordinary people living in such polluted environments evolved into superhumans.