For the Love of Art

Collective Effort

Poet Cheng Xiaobei founded Shangyuan with a group of fellow artists in 2007. After they leased the land, building the commune was a collective effort which took several years. Artists pitched in to help with funding, and even contributed to the physical labor of construction. They met with much skepticism from local residents at first, expressed through rubbish dumped at their front door, and even occasional break-ins and vandalism – all attempts to sabotage the project. Now, though, the local community has embraced them, even designating the village an arts district.

Performance art Obstacle by Spanish artist María Peña Coto.

Cheng Xiaobei is an omnipresent maternal figure, constantly supervising everything that goes on here – although she loathes being thought of as a teacher or even a leader. “This is not a school,” she insists. “We are all artists here.” A silver-haired, round-faced lady with thick round-rimmed glasses, she exudes energy – always on the move, gesticulating and talking – not your traditional idea of a poet. She dresses simply in a tunic and trousers, but accessorizes with a large necklace of wooden rainbow beads and a pink beaded bracelet. As we talk, she keeps fending off photographers eager to snap a shot of her at work. “Don’t take pictures of me,” she says firmly. And, after repeating this several times to different people, she sighs and swats the air with her hand: “like mosquitoes” she says, laughing.