In 2015, Chinese coast guard ships were spotted about 100 kilometres north of Sarawak. Local attention arose to the issue of the “nine-dash line”, a set of line segments drawn on various maps that represent China’s claim to more than 90 percent of the South China Sea. In 2017, during the time Yee I-Lann began this work, news circulated again about new Chinese coast guard territory in the region.Telling a story of the nine-dash line involves not just a history of human claims over contested maritime territories, but the troubling effects of increased maritime traffic on biodiversity. International demand for the South China Sea is in large part due to its position as a desirable source of energy. Increased oil rigging has disturbed its environment, changing wave patterns and creating undesirable conditions for the region’s population of coral reefs and animal life. Yee’s response, Nine-Dash Line , deals with these tensions. Seven white mats form the shape of rocks, drawing a circle around choppy waters. Set under a foreboding grey sky, nine trembling red lines cross over the composition in the shape of their referent. They appear to be hastily drawn, and introduce an awkward vandalism into the sublime landscape depicted. This particular imaging of the nine-dash line brings to light a long history of human claims over nature, as a terrain for critique of borders, sovereignty claims, and the landscapes that are implicated in these human-centric concerns.