Unheard Voices ;The grasslands of Chen Jiqun’s youth live on in his paintings even if they continue to recede in reality. Vast landscapes filled with horses galloping between herds of sheep, goats, and cows grazing on foot-high grass have been replaced with cornfields, fenced-in pastures, mines, and increasingly, deserts. ;Chen moved to Inner Mongolia in 1967, a young man in search of adventure. ;The middle rider on horseback is Chen:
 ;He stayed until 1980, doing a variety of jobs including living as a semi-nomadic herder for a few years. Returning frequently throughout the 1980s and 1990s to paint and visit friends, Chen witnessed how reform policies, including the uneven implementation of the household responsibility system, affected the grasslands. After the so-called “enclosure policy” began creeping northward through Inner Mongolia in the late 1990s with desertification not far behind, Chen felt compelled to do something. “I kept reading about what was happening on the grasslands, but it was never from the viewpoint of the Mongol herders. Actually, they were always cast as the cause of desertification rather than as the victims,” reflects Chen. ;
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