Delivering high-quality cultural resources directly to the grassroots and strengthening the public cultural service system are of great significance in meeting the ever-growing spiritual and cultural needs of the broad masses and promoting common prosperity in people's spiritual life.
In recent years, art academies have conducted extensive exploration and practice in promoting the direct delivery of quality art resources to rural areas through diversified art-based rural revitalization initiatives. Summarizing the experiences from past practices will be beneficial for better implementing art-based rural revitalization in the future.
Respecting and Preserving the Unique, 'Down-to-Earth' Elements of Rural Life
From past experiences of artistic rural development, two primary scenarios emerge. One involves areas lacking significant natural resources and cultural heritage, as well as conditions for tourism. In such cases, artists primarily introduce 'external forces' to enhance public cultural services, fulfilling villagers' artistic experiences. The other scenario features regions with inherent rich resources but untapped potential. Here, art can empower further exploration, strengthening 'internal capabilities' to accelerate rural revitalization.
Both scenarios boast successful case studies. The first is exemplified by Yangdeng Town in Tongzi County, Guizhou, which lacks outstanding natural resources or intangible cultural heritage, and its traditional crafts are not particularly diverse. Over 12 years, faculty and students from the Sichuan Academy of Fine Arts have transformed the town through resident art creation and aesthetic education. At the 2024 Yangdeng "Rustic Yet Innovative" Art Festival in June, over 40 local villagers were awarded prizes such as the "Earthy & Unique" Artist Award and the "Earthy & Unique" Artistic Work Award, captivating audiences. Most of these amateur artists had no prior artistic exposure. Under the guidance of professional artists, their innate creativity was sparked, leading them to fall in love with art and find lasting joy in it. Today, in the old town of Yangdeng, restaurants, clothing stores, hair salons, grocery stores, and other businesses have transformed into art galleries, displaying a variety of artworks created by local farmers. Art silently permeates the daily lives of the villagers.
Interior of "A Box of Hometown" Bamboo Residence: A College Student Entrepreneurial Project in Xikou Town, Longyou County, Zhejiang Province
In the second scenario, we have Xikou Town in Longyou County, Zhejiang Province, which boasts not only a millennia-old town rich in historical and cultural resources but also abundant bamboo resources and traditional crafts. A few years ago, an artist team from the Academy of Arts, Tsinghua University, was invited to establish the "Fiber Art Research Institute Training Base" and the "Shijiaocun International Fiber Artist Exchange Center" in Xikou Town. Through a model of "masters guiding mentors, mentors guiding artisans, and artisans guiding farmers," they engaged in site-specific creations, activating rural resources through art. Collaborative works between artists and villagers, such as the landmark bamboo installation art piece "Pavilion of Light," shone brightly at the International Fiber Art Exhibition.
The successful experiences of these two cases illustrate that the key to introducing artistic resources into rural areas lies in understanding and integrating into the local culture, rather than simply imitating or awkwardly transplanting external ideas. China's rural areas are vast and populous, with most rural landscapes exhibiting a simple and natural beauty. Improper implementation of art-based rural revitalization activities can disrupt rural aesthetics. For instance, some regions have adopted uniform modern building materials and standardized construction practices, erasing the traditional architectural features and failing to reflect the aesthetic value they should possess. This, in turn, disrupted the natural ecological landscape of the villages, stripping them of their original beauty and cultural significance.
In practice, only by deeply understanding rural history, natural conditions, economic and cultural circumstances can we approach problem-solving from a rural perspective and, based on this understanding, engage in design and artistic creation. Therefore, in the process of facilitating the direct flow of high-quality artistic resources to rural areas, we must respect and preserve the indigenous, authentic "earthy" elements. It is these unique rural landscapes that exhibit the beauty of natural harmony, carry the weight of centuries-old nostalgia, and potentially hold distinct green and environmentally friendly values. For example, during the "Xikou Village Art Festival · 2023 Arshan Rural Art Season," designers synthesized a rich system of visual elements from the pink flowers blooming in spring, the lush greenery of summer, the gray-brown hues of autumn, and the snowy landscapes of winter observed during on-site inspections. These artistic elements, combined with the daily life and industrial characteristics of the locality, constituted an integrated visual tableau. Villagers couldn't help but marvel at how art had made life and nature more harmonious.
Long-term Planning Ensures the Sustainability of Rural Art Practices
Currently, some rural art initiatives exhibit a one-off or short-term nature, which not only struggles to create lasting cultural impact but may also lead to resource wastage and environmental damage. For instance, certain rural art festivals, content with fleeting bustle, often leave behind deserted venues once the crowds disperse. This is primarily due to the lack of long-term vision and meticulous planning, as well as the absence of core competitiveness and economic returns. To rectify this situation, we need to shift our approach and focus on cultivating art projects that can take root in rural areas and sustainably develop.
Ensuring the sustainability of rural art initiatives requires long-term planning and consistent investment. Professor Dong Shubing, a sculpture artist, initiated the "Wilderness Art Project" in Guazhou, Gansu Province in 2016, which continues to this day and serves as a quintessential example of bringing high-quality art resources directly to the grassroots and rural areas. This project relocates large-scale sculpture installations from enclosed gallery spaces to the expansive natural environment, specifically the northwest Gobi Desert, presenting a unique showcase of the diversity and profound cultural foundations of Chinese art.
"Son of the Earth," created by Professor Dong Shubing from the Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University, stands in the Gobi Desert, showcasing the diversity of Chinese art and attracting nearly a million visitors annually.
Taking the well-known "Son of the Earth" as an example, the sculpture, originally housed in an art museum, acquired a new artistic lease on life through spatial relocation and enlargement in a rural setting. This not only transformed the public's perception of traditional sculpture but also expanded the sculpture's physical manifestation and cultural imagination. In his subsequent works, Dong Shubing emphasized the integration of art with regional characteristics, such as the tailored "Wind Talker" for Guazhou, a region rich in wind resources. This site-specific approach allows artistic creations to be deeply embedded in the local historical culture and natural environment, enriching the local cultural landscape and enhancing the artistic value of public spaces. Today, works like "Son of the Earth" have not only become landmarks that are widely discussed but have also transformed barren lands into popular attractions, drawing nearly a million tourists each year for special visits.
Meanwhile, the "Guanzhong Mangba Art Festival," jointly initiated by the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts and the Huyi District of Xi'an City, serves as a model for the richness and sustainability of artistic events. Evolving from the ancient Mangba Gathering, "Mangba" literally means "the end of the busy farming season." According to legend, since the Ming and Qing dynasties, villages in Guanzhong would set a date after the summer farming season to collectively host relatives and friends for a feast, celebrating the harvest. Its significance and grandeur in the Guanzhong region are comparable to that of the Spring Festival.
Since 2018, the "Guanzhong Mangba Art Festival" has been held for six consecutive editions. Leveraging traditional folk festivals, the art festival transforms materialistic rural areas into artistic spaces and turns natural fields into performance stages, using art to revitalize the Mangba festival tradition. It integrates the lifestyle, values, and normative order of traditional villages with the innovative culture and aesthetic of modern urban civilization, jointly constructing an organic relationship where urban and rural cultures mutually enhance each other. In recent years, the Huyi District has innovated its operational model, creating and introducing 56 new consumption scenarios such as the "Caijiapo Better Life Service Center," planning over 20 income-generating projects like educational tourism and agricultural picking, and opening more than 100 shared sales stalls. This is expected to directly create employment for over 1,000 people and generate tourism revenue of over 80 million yuan.
Driven by the art festival, a boutique artistic rural cultural tourism route along the foot of the Qinling Mountains, known as "Road No. 8," continues to expand: Liyukou Village is developing a "Rural Creative" cultural industry cluster, and Xiazhuang Village is becoming a model for inheriting new folk arts... Villages along the route are constantly exploring economic growth points and industrial integration for rural art tourism. This demonstrates that only with continuity can an event form a brand and clustering effect, allowing related cultural traditions to be passed down, related industries to continuously develop, and the people to benefit from it.
Fully mobilize the enthusiasm of diverse collaborators for mutual creation and shared success.
One challenge in delivering artistic resources directly to rural communities is how to efficiently activate their internal vitality, while respecting and understanding each other, ensuring that both cultural awakening and economic support are given equal importance. This means engaging with villagers on an equal footing, establishing a warm and efficient communication mechanism, and simultaneously investing funds and resources to collaborate with them in cultural development and achieve a virtuous economic cycle empowered by art. In this process, artists and designers play a pivotal role as capable partners in co-entrepreneurship, avoiding the temptation to intervene as “instructors”.
In 2021, the Rural Revitalization Base of the College of Landscape Architecture at China Agricultural University, known as the "Tech Hub," was established in Xiongfan Village, Huanggang City, Hubei Province, occupying over 5,000 square meters of land with a construction area of more than 1,500 square meters. It is one of over 200 "Tech Hubs" established by China Agricultural University, aiming to observe and practice rural revitalization in the long term, while gradually introducing artistic resources.
The "Lushan, A Place of Tranquility" exhibition hall project designed by Professor Wu Shizhong's team at Tsinghua University School of Fine Arts, located in a village at the foot of Lushan Mountain
The core concept of the "Tech Hub" is to immerse itself deeply in rural life and forge sincere, trusting relationships with villagers. To bolster their collective consciousness and sense of belonging, the resident teachers and students of the "Tech Hub" constructed a "Village History Museum," shouldering all design, construction, and material costs. To breathe new life into the quiet village, they also planned and organized "Village Evenings," where villagers themselves rehearsed and performed, greatly igniting their enthusiasm. This underscores that, in the process of bringing artistic resources to rural areas, the key to mobilizing villagers' initiative and proactivity lies in the artists' attitude: only through sincerity and genuine dedication can one truly touch hearts.
To facilitate the direct flow of artistic resources to rural communities, it is imperative to tangibly benefit farmers. Liu Xiaoshan, former Deputy Director of the Development and Guidance Department at the National Administration for Rural Revitalization, once pointed out that to revitalize rural resource elements, efforts should be focused on achieving "Three Transformations": First, transforming private homes into guesthouses by renovating existing rural courtyards, thereby improving rural living conditions while also revitalizing rural culture and integrating cultural tourism with guesthouse accommodations. Second, transforming assets into capital by establishing an orderly mechanism for the compensated withdrawal of land contracting rights and house ownership, thus activating these dormant resources and leveraging village collective cooperatives for leasing to propel rural industry development. Third, transforming farmers into entrepreneurs by bringing revitalized rural assets to the market, allowing farmers to become investors and beneficiaries along the industry chain, forming a "benefit linkage."
Rural art revitalization is a systematic endeavor requiring collaboration from multiple stakeholders. In the future, the revitalization of rural areas through art should shift from a single-actor model to a multi-actor collaborative approach that fosters co-creation and shared success. Governments, social organizations, businesses, artists, and villagers must all participate jointly, forming a synergistic force to achieve sustainable development. Governments should provide policy support, social organizations should contribute project management expertise, businesses should drive project industrialization and commercialization through investment and cooperation, artists should infuse creativity and artistic value, and villagers, as the stakeholders most familiar with local culture and needs, are crucial to the project's success through their active involvement. For example, the "Lushan, A Place of Tranquility" exhibition project initiated by Professor Wu Shizhong's team in a village at the foot of Mount Lushan is a typical case of multi-actor collaboration and co-creation. As a vivid practice of bringing digital art directly to the grassroots, Wu's team fully leveraged experts and corporate resources across technology, art, history, literature, and other fields, and with the construction assistance of local villagers, successfully implemented the project.
Promoting the flow of artistic resources to rural areas requires persistent efforts. We urge art academies, in the process of rural art revitalization, to prioritize talent cultivation as the foundation for ensuring sustainable development through the synergy of art and rural construction. Furthermore, it is essential to strengthen coordination and cooperation among academies, fully leverage platforms such as the "Special Committee on Rural Art Construction" within the Rural Construction Universities Alliance, and establish a comprehensive "Education-Research-Production-Policy-Agriculture" work system that complements each other. Emphasis should be placed on harnessing technological power, promoting the deep integration of culture, art, and technology, and exploring the use of digitization and artificial intelligence to better and faster deliver rich artistic resources to the grassroots and villagers, integrating them into the local culture and daily life. This will contribute to the enrichment of people's spiritual lives and the pursuit of common prosperity through art.
