Limits and criticalities of the (so-called) socially engaged village-based rural projects in contemporary China: a study of the Yangdeng Art Cooperative and the Bishan Project 

My project wants to analyse the socially engaged environment in contemporary China, through one of its peculiarities; long-term village-based projects in rural areas. Led by similar urban initiators, with similar aims, and degree of interaction with the state, space-based socially engaged projects in rural villages of China have specific features. Focusing on two long-term, village-based projects, the Yangdeng Art Cooperative and the Bishan Commune, respectively set in Guizhou province and Anhui province between 2010 and 2020 by two urban cultural facilitators, I will outline that they also have some limits and criticalities. Indeed, these are related both to the socio-political and aesthetic side of the practice but also to the projects’ aims, engagement with the communities, display of the artworks, and relation with the state.