A few days ago, "Crossing the Mountains and Seas - National Exhibition of Rural Art Construction Achievements in Colleges and Universities" was held in the Art Museum of the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University. The exhibition exhibits the practical achievements of rural art construction from 18 art academies across the country, covering environmental design, product design, graphic design, interaction design, public art and other fields, presenting the fruitful achievements of art academies through local creation from multiple perspectives.
China's artistic rural construction first started in 2007 with the "Xucun Project". In that year, the team of Professor Qu Yan of Guangdong University of Technology organized artists to sketch, collect, live and create in Xucun, Heshun County, Shanxi, and finally developed a whole industrial chain of the art industry in Xucun, creating the nationally famous "Xucun Model", which proved the feasibility of art intervention in rural development with practice. Since then, many local art projects have emerged one after another, such as the Bishan Project, Qingtian Paradigm, Shijiezi Village Art Museum, and Yanglei Project, which have become models of artistic rural construction.
In recent years, with the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, the literary and artistic circles have widely carried out local creation, allowing art and the countryside to collide with different sparks. On the one hand, from the teaching dimension, teachers and students are encouraged to go deep into the countryside, take root in the people, and write their papers on the land of the motherland; On the other hand, from the dimension of artistic rural construction, we should give full play to the important role of literature and art in serving economic and social development, and apply more art elements and artistic elements to rural planning and construction, so as to empower rural revitalization.
Local creation, as the name suggests, creates in a limited place. It is not only an important path of artistic creation, but also an important form of artistic rural construction. The localization and locality of culture and art originate from the English Site-specific (literally translated as "site limitation"). It is believed that localization is to reflect on the cultural differences brought about by location differences and highlight local characteristics from the perspective of economic globalization, and site-specific is often interpreted as "localization", "locality", "on-site" and "limited". The local creation mentioned here mainly refers to the development of art based on a specific location, emphasizing the localization of art through residency, experience, observation, practice, etc., so it is also called resident creation.
In the past, local creations were mainly concentrated in the field of pure art such as oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, etc.: foreign artists went to China, or urban artists went to the countryside, and stayed for a week or a month or two to complete the creation of related artworks. At present, local creation has gone beyond the scope of pure art, and is no longer limited to the creation of a certain work, but through art to empower rural planning and construction, focus on the improvement of rural appearance, the upgrading of rural products, etc., to carry out artistic creation to solve the practical problems encountered in the process of rural revitalization.
Taking "Crossing Mountains and Seas: Exhibition of Rural Art Construction Achievements in National Universities" as an example, the local creative practices carried out by 18 art colleges have changed and beautified the countryside to varying degrees, and brought about the transformation and revitalization of the countryside. At the same time, the teachers and students who were deeply involved in it found new inspiration and epiphany in the collision between art and the countryside, and re-examined the social value of art.
Shuttling through the exhibition hall, through graphics, texts, and video materials, the local creative practices of various art academies are in front of you. The Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, explores a variety of paths for art to beautify the countryside, design to enhance the countryside, cultural revitalization of the countryside, and talent empowerment of the countryside, and uses art to connect the natural features, folk customs, humanistic connotations, and contemporary life of the countryside, so that art can enter the earth, return to the wilderness, and be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. Relying on the White Night Land Art Exhibition in front of the mountain, the Central Academy of Fine Arts deeply excavates the cultural resources of Pingjiang, Hunan Province, and promotes the ecological reconstruction of the countryside through the diversified integration of "regional culture + natural environment + art + technology", so as to realize the integration and symbiosis of the natural environment, rural society, culture and ecological benefits. The China Academy of Art put forward the educational concept of "taking the countryside as the college", launched the social practice course of "going to the mountains and going to the countryside", and established the link between the individual students and the society through local creation, and cultivated students' artistic attitudes and working methods.
Looking at the local creative practice of major art academies, art meets the countryside, achieving the effect of two-way fulfillment, and sparks are generated in each other.
On the one hand, local creation can not only directly contribute to the upgrading of rural industries, artistic practice, space creation, etc., but also stimulate the endogenous power of rural "walking towards beauty" through interactive aesthetic education. The local artworks have a typical public nature, which breaks through the personalized creation method of traditional artworks, highlights the participation of the people, and prompts artists to mobilize the aesthetic needs of the people in artistic methods and languages, so that the people can express their aesthetic needs in the form of art, so as to achieve the embodiment and identity of self-worth. The practice of local creation carried out by artists and villagers is related to the villagers' sense of experience, identity and belonging to art, and the changes in the harmonious countryside brought by the creative results, as well as the benefits of cultural creativity and cultural tourism, which can bring a full sense of gain and happiness to the villagers. The motivational effect of this kind of cooperation with the United States as a medium is long-term and profound.
On the other hand, local creation allows artists, especially art college students, to go deep into the countryside, understand the countryside, go deep into life, take root in life, and truly become literary and artistic workers who listen to the voice of the times and respond to the needs of the times. Needless to say, at present, art college students are generally alienated from rural areas, and art education focuses on skill training, lacking in-depth integration with the propositions of the times and the social scene. In this case, guiding and leading college students to participate in local creation in rural areas is undoubtedly an effective way to kill multiple birds with one stone. As Qin Chuan, Secretary of the Party Committee of the Academy of Arts and Design, Tsinghua University, said, local creation can guide students to understand local materials and traditional crafts in their creation, understand the characteristics of rural physical space and natural and cultural environment, think about the multiple possibilities of art to stimulate rural vitality and endogenous power, establish emotional ties to the local society in exchanges and cooperation with villagers, and enhance the sense of responsibility to serve the society with art and design.
At present, the art rural construction activities represented by local creation, art to the countryside, rural art classes and other forms have achieved phased results, but the problems of systematic lack in the process have gradually become prominent and exposed, for example, the lack of communication platforms and collaboration mechanisms between various art rural construction activities and projects is difficult to form a linkage effect of "connecting the dots into a line"; The participation and enthusiasm of villagers need to be improved. This requires artists to not only strengthen their collaboration with each other, but also increase dialogue and exchange with villagers while creating art.
In the construction of Hemei Village in the new era, art academies shoulder more important missions and responsibilities. Based on this consensus, recently, the "Rural Art Construction Special Committee" of the Rural Construction University Alliance was officially established. With the exchange and cooperation of major art academies, art and the countryside will collide with new and more wonderful sparks. (Guangming Daily)
(Author: Zhang Yifan, Assistant Researcher, Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University)