For the Love of Art

The Shang-yuan residency program encompasses everything from performance art to painting.

Striding about energetically, Cheng first gives visitors a tour of the complex, then meets the residents and oversees a modest opening ceremony for the exhibition of their newest works. In between, she finds time to spend 20 minutes practicing the guqin – the oldest known musical instrument in China, whose music entranced poets. It is a short moment of calm in the whirlwind of her day.

An Ancient Practice

There is a deep sense of tradition here – a desire to revive the ancient Chinese practice of communication between different artistic mediums. In ancient China, Cheng explains, it was common for poets to commune with musicians and painters to aid creativity. This is what she aimed to facilitate by founding Shangyuan, and yet she insists rather fiercely that this is not a revivalist movement per se, nothing to do with the grassroots movement which purposefully attempts to revivify China’s antique practices. Shangyuan is more about the value of the practice in itself and how it can help artists develop. The communing of people with different artistic approaches is a valuable pursuit and should never have been lost.