On June 29th, the launching ceremony of the first Sanlian Humanities Season and the second season of the "Spring of a Small Town" exhibition was held in Zhongmu Ideal Community, Henan.
With the theme of "Here and Now", the first Sanlian Humanities Season is jointly organized by Sanlian Humanities City/Sanlian Life Media Co., Ltd. and Zhongmu Cultural Tourism Investment Co., Ltd., focusing on China's cross-regional, uneven and diverse cultural customs, as well as the moving stories that carry the changes of the times and continue to be written, through exhibitions, workshops, performances, salons and other forms, to reawaken the public's look back at a city's cultural climate. As the prelude to this year's Triptych Humanities and Terroir Season, the second season exhibition of "Spring in a Small Town" is open to the public from now on.
Exhibition view of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" Zhongmu Ideal Community Art Museum
Exhibition view of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" Zhongmu Ideal Community Art Museum
In Zhongmu
Awaken local memories and reshape cultural customs
With a history of more than 2,700 years, Zhongmu is located in the Central Plains of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River and has always been the center of Chinese civilization. It is located between the ancient capital of Bianluo and was once the ancient battlefield of the famous "Battle of Guandu" in history. There used to be a beautiful talk that "reaching out and touching is the culture of the two Han Dynasty, and stepping on the foot is the Qin brick and Han tile".
Today's Zhongmu is an important agricultural production base rich in watermelon, garlic, strawberry and wheat, and has the largest agricultural product wholesale trading market in the central region, Wanbang International Agricultural Products Logistics City. Zhongmu is also committed to providing tourists with the richest travel experience, with eight theme parks distributed along Zhengkai Avenue for nearly eight kilometers, providing visitors with a dreamy experience.
In her speech at the opening ceremony, Ding Wenxia, Secretary of the Zhongmu County Party Committee of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, said that history is the memory of the city, and culture is the soul of the city. In recent years, Zhongmu County has adhered to the guidance of Xi Jinping's cultural thought and the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the Cultural Inheritance and Development Symposium, deeply practiced the policy of "two innovations", vigorously inherited the historical context of the city, and polished the cultural brand of the "Yanming Golden Autumn" pen club with cultural people, benefiting the people with culture, running the city with culture, and developing the industry with culture, forming a broad consensus of "the first county of China's theme parks", and calling out the city IP of "China's Zhongmu City of Fantasy Music".
This major event allowed the humanistic concept advocated by Sanlian and the city brand of "China Zhongmu - City of Fantasy" to collide and integrate, so that the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese culture, Central Plains culture and Zhongmu culture can truly highlight the cultural heritage and spiritual outlook in urban development, cultivate a unique urban cultural temperament and cultural charm that meets the needs of the modernization of the core growth pole of Zhengkai City, and further enhance the "China Zhongmu City of Fantasy and Happiness" This city IP is modern and international.
Ding Wenxia, Secretary of the Zhongmu County Party Committee of Zhengzhou City, Henan Province, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony
Li Honggu, general manager of Sanlian Life Media and editor-in-chief of Sanlian Life Weekly, said that local culture still shows tenacious vitality and uniqueness, and these "precious things" are the cornerstone of global cultural diversity, as well as the spark of cultural inheritance and renewal. In the past, our relationship with our hometown has developed from individual observation and even criticism to gaze and imagination. Now, the town has become our unfinished dream, which reflects the mood of the times that yearns for a return to the basics, which is also a motivation for the opening of the Sanlian cultural terroir season. In the fast-paced Internet era, when people really go into their daily lives, the small town of their dreams will really return to their hands.
Li Honggu, general manager of Sanlian Life Media and editor-in-chief of Sanlian Life Weekly, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony
Xiong Xiaojie, chairman of Times Cultural Tourism Group, said that people's travel purpose has gradually developed from chasing scenic spots and parks to being eager to discover more cities and discover more unknowns. The "Spring in a Small Town" series of exhibitions has invited many artists to explore the cultural context of a small town, which can further meet people's spiritual pursuit of travel and residence.
Recently, the "National County Tourism Development Research Report 2024" and the list of "2024 National Top 100 Counties with Comprehensive Strength of County Tourism" were announced, and Zhongmu was shortlisted for the first time in the list of the top 100 counties with comprehensive strength of county tourism in China.
In the endless daily life of Zhongmu, there is not only the hope of a bumper harvest and the yearning for happy times, but also people's conception of an ideal life. In 2012, the Puluo community in Zhongmu is committed to creating a model of modern community that not only looks at the world, but also is based on the homeland.
With the theme of "Here and Now", the first Sanlian Humanistic Terroir Season, co-sponsored by Sanlian Humanistic City/Sanlian Life Media Co., Ltd. and Zhongmu Cultural Tourism Investment Co., Ltd., will awaken local memories and reshape humanistic terroir through exhibitions, cross-border forums, co-creation art activities, practical activities and other forms from June to October, not only looking back at history, paying attention to the present, but also perceiving and discovering places.
The second season of the "Spring in a Small Town" exhibition uses various forms such as creative billboards and the transformation of transportation vehicles with local characteristics of Zhongmu to bring art to the public
The second season of the "Spring in a Small Town" exhibition uses various forms such as creative billboards and the transformation of transportation vehicles with local characteristics of Zhongmu to bring art to the public
Look back at the town
Connecting hometown and the world, past and future
In the spring of 2022, Cui Cancan, the co-curator of Sanlian Humanistic City, jointly launched the urban project "Spring in a Small Town". In the spring of 2024, the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" will begin, inviting 15 co-founders (groups) - Ban Yu, Chen Yufan, Chen Yujun, Cheng Xinhao, Duan Jianwei, Geng Jun, Gu Tao, Hu Yinping, Luo Yujie, Miao Translation Bureau, She Haiqing, Sun Xiaofeng, Wu Wei, Yuan Ye, Zhang Gayi, Zhu Lanqing. The second season of Zhongmu's exhibition "Spring in a Small Town" represents the unique scenery, condensed memories and unique ways of refracting the world through their creations.
Exhibition view of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" Zhongmu Ideal Community Art Museum
For some co-founders, hometown is a metaphor that is difficult to distinguish from near and far, and it is a kind of reflection of life. Writer Ban Yu takes us back to Tiexi District, Shenyang, starting from the park in the city to recreate the hometown scene in our memory. In the eyes of director Geng Jun, who is also from the Northeast, there are two in his hometown of Hegang, one in reality and the other in his own film creation. In the 20 years of camera tracking by documentary director Gu Tao, his hometown is hidden in the lush forests and endless streams of the Daxing'an Mountains.
Director Gu Tao set up the traditional "dwellings" of the Oroqen, Evenki, Hezhe and other ethnic groups at the exhibition site
In the contemplation of the homeland, the trajectory of the changes of the times is recorded. Artist Duan Jianwei was born and raised in Henan, so his paintings have always had a strong Central Plains flavor. His paintings also record the changes in the spiritual outlook of the peasants under the process of urbanization. Photography artist Zhu Lanqing really established a wait-and-see view of her hometown after leaving her hometown, and in her lens, the abandoned 10 billion new city is the unfulfilled dream of Dongshan Island.
Exhibition view of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" Exhibition view of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town".
If the 10 billion new city on Dongshan Island points to the 1990s, which embraced all dreams and possibilities, then the Gongyuan Film Factory in Shantou points to the self-made and ambitious 1950s. In 1953, Shantou Gongyuan Photographic Chemical Factory was established. It embodies countless "firsts". At the turn of the century, Shantou Gongyuan Film Factory withdrew from the stage of history. In 2023, artist and curator Sun Xiaofeng landed an exhibition of the conservation research results of the Gongyuan Film Factory at the Half Day Art Museum in Shantou. In Sun Xiaofeng's view, the past and stories of the A.D. Film Factory not only embody the clarion call of the times, but also gather the indomitable adventurous spirit of Chaoshan people, and also inherit the ideal of a life home that Chaoshan has believed in for thousands of years.
Zhu Lanqing's artwork "Ten Billion New City - Collected Maluan Bay Postcards" from the 1990s Photographic works, physical evidence
People today yearn to return to the town again and again, because home is not only a warm shelter, but also a meeting point for emotions and cultural imaginations. In the hands of artist Wu Wei, felt grows out of cabinets and chairs, overlapping with the trivial memories of home in his memory, becoming a simulacrum of his past life. For Putian artists Chen Yujun and Chen Yufan, the "house" in southern Fujian is a container for their hometown memories and the starting point of their creation. Located in the central and southern Fujian region of Fujian, the history of "going to the South Seas" has brought imagination about foreign lands, and has also extended and told the concept of "home" in a larger dimension of time and space, and is closely related to the aggregation and dispersion of Chinese people, and the identity of individuals and ethnic groups.
For a small city in the midst of a metamorphosis, many traditions have been forgotten in the tide of the times. As musicians, artists, and architects, the co-creators of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" have revisited tradition and aroused people's attention to life in small towns in their own way.
Zhang Gayi, a musician from the Northwest, described how he can get a sense of security when he hears a donkey barking, and the donkey is a microcosm of his hometown. He is also in the non-stop collection, looking for folk songs and songs that belong to the Northwest. In Zheshui, Shanxi Province, architect Luo Yujie revitalized an aging village with a natural library leaning against a hanging wall.
Luo Yujie's artwork "Sharing Ladybugs"
Artist She Haiqing's work "Diamond Rose" uses countless artificial roses embellished with broken diamonds to awaken people's rethinking of labor and value. Hu Yinping, an artist who came out of a small town in Sichuan, brought knitted products knitted by the aunts in her hometown to the world, which not only condensed individual labor and emotions, but also became the spiritual fulcrum of the aunts in the small town of Sichuan, helping them to establish a connection with the world. The Hmong Translation Bureau was established to capture the gap between the language and culture of the Hmong region and modern life. Conveying the concepts of modern life to native Hmong speakers, the Hmong Translation Bureau tries to re-establish the connection between the Hmong language and the times.
Hu Yinping's "United Nations"
The history of a small town is often reconstructed by the times, and the existence of objects bears witness to how the past and the present are connected. In 2019, artist Cheng Xinhao started in Kunming and walked along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, built in 1910, to the Sino-Vietnamese border. On the way along the Yunnan-Vietnam Railway, every other kilometer, the artist picks up a piece of ballast and puts it in his backpack and shoots a video accordingly. In this way, the 449-kilometer journey was eventually translated into the weight of 449 stones, and the artwork "To the Ocean" was formed.
Artist Yuan Ye used plants as a method to enter the small city of Zhongmu in the Central Plains and compiled "Experiences of Zhongmu Plants". Through data collection and reading, Yuan Ye presents the deep connection between plants and places in the form of multiple media, and also illuminates the past, present and future shaped by people and plants, and by humans and nature.
Yuan Ye's "Plants in Zhongmu" (2024)
Explore the future
Set off a new wave of humanistic terroir
On the occasion of the opening of the first Sanlian Humanities and Terroir Season and the second season of "Spring in a Small Town", Cui Cancan, the co-founder of the "Spring in a Small Town" project and the curator of this exhibition, said that "Small Town" is not a face, but a thousand differences, unique regions, geography, nature, and history, creating different views on life, nature, and philosophy. Today's small cities have the accumulation of Chinese-style urbanization, with similar patterns and structures, but the native soil hidden under the similarities brings about the differences of small cities. "What we are concerned with is how the local response of modernity in different small towns is distorted and re-transferred into a new hybrid."
Cui Cancan, co-founder of the "Spring in a Small Town" project, delivered a speech at the opening ceremony
At the opening forum in the afternoon, around the theme of "Small City is Our Unfulfilled Dream", the three participating artists shared their views on behalf of director Gu Tao, artist Hu Yinping, musician Chen Hongyu and curator Cui Cancan. Documentary filmmaker Gu Tao chose to use his own film clips as a guide to share his creative experience of returning from the city to the forest. Nearly 20 years of shooting experience has made him look forward to his hometown again and again, and the nomadic nature of his hometown has been deeply imprinted in his works. Artist Hu Yinping started with the origin of "Xiaofang" and showed how knitted woolen products can connect the aunts in small towns in Sichuan with the world. Chen Hongyu, the co-founder of the first season, shared his plan to regain his hometown with the theme of "The Wanderer and the Distant Hometown". After the sharing, Cui Cancan hosted the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" co-founder dialogue, with Duan Jianwei, Yuan Ye, Gu Tao, Hu Yinping and Chen Hongyu participating in the dialogue.
"Spring in a Small Town" Season 2 Salon Dialogue Session (from left to right: Cui Cancan, participating artist representatives Chen Hongyu, Duan Jianwei, Yuan Ye, Hu Yinping, Gu Tao)
Jia Dongting, the host of the forum and the co-initiator of "Spring in a Small Town", concluded that re-understanding the terroir and exploring the contemporary value of the terroir in the modern scene is the "Renaissance" that is currently being experimented in Zhongmu County, Henan. Sanlian Humanistic City hopes that through the Sanlian Humanistic Climate Season and the "Spring of Small Town" series of activities, it will not only tell the local history and humanities, but also explore the close emotional connection between the city and people; While looking back at the tradition, we will explore the future full of possibilities and set off a new wave of humanities and customs.
In the afternoon of the same day, director Gu Tao's documentary screening was held at the Zhongmu Ideal Community Sharing Center. The films screened are "Hugo's Holiday" and "Liu Xia's Sun", which show Gu Tao's tracking of the living conditions of ethnic minorities in northern China over the years.
In the Zhongmu Ideal Community Sharing Center, Sanlian Humanities City also invited photographer Zhang Jingxiang to jointly launch the "We Live Here" local photography project. Zhang Jingxiang used his lens to record the cultural customs of Zhongmu "here and now", in order to arouse people's infinite imagination and expectations here.
On June 29th, as the prelude to the first Sanlian Humanities and Terroir Season, the second season exhibition of "Spring in a Small Town" has been opened to the public at the Henan Zhongmu Ideal Community Sharing Center and Community Art Museum, and the exhibition will last until October 2024. The 13 documentaries of the second season of "Spring in a Small Town" have been released to the audience on the Sanlian new media platform a few days ago. (Photo by O'Com)
The first Sanlian Humanities Season and the second season exhibition of "Spring in a Small Town".
Opening: June 29, 2024
Duration: June 2024 to October 2024
Venue: Zhongmu Ideal Community Sharing Center and Community Art Museum