Xinhua Headlines: Avant-garde art enlivens rural China amid revitalization drive
"At that time, I felt the village was getting emptier and I could not see anyone on the roads after dinner, which was scary," said villager Zheng Jun, 60. "When the artists first came, we didn't expect that they would bring such a change to the village."
Cui Kaimin, one of the first artists to visit the village, is a teacher at the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts. Cui said the first art festival was the result of a social research project conducted in 2018 by teachers and students at the academy. During their research, they found that the village was picturesque but had been "hollowed out" by migration.
"When the young students arrived, many elderly villagers invited them to their homes for dinner, hoping to chat and discover something new," Cui recalled.
People watch a performance at Caijiapo Village in Huyi District, Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, July 8, 2023. (Xinhua/Sun Zhenghao)
In their conversations with locals, the students learned about a folk custom, "Mangba meeting," meaning "gathering in the fallow season" in the local dialect. Traditionally, after the annual wheat harvest, farmers on the Guanzhong Plain enjoy a period of leisure, visiting relatives and friends to share steamed buns and fruit.
During the first festival, various activities were held in the wheat fields, including the staging of short sketches by villagers and avant-garde dramas. The teachers and students also crafted artworks from wheat straw and tree branches, turning the village and fields into art spaces.
The event struck a positive chord. In 2018, the festival's first edition attracted a large number of tourists, providing a new market for the village's agricultural products.
The village, which has a population of nearly 4,000, began to systematically transform itself into a venue for the arts based on this early success, developing a range of creative events, along with services and facilities for visitors and professionals.
During this year's Dragon Boat Festival holiday, which lasted from June 22 to 24, Caijiapo received more than 50,000 tourists.
Caijiapo is not alone in utilizing art in its development. Home to some 8,000 painters, Dafen is a village known for oil painting in southern China's Shenzhen City. Its painting industry started in 1989, and the village has since been using its artistic resources to boost rural revitalization.
BREATHING NEW LIFE INTO OLD VILLAGE
Earlier this month, the fifth Guanzhong Mangba Arts Festival opened in Caijiapo, now a major cultural event in the village.
Wu Xiaochuan, a professor at the Xi'an Academy of Fine Arts, said this year's festival will last for four months. The artists have arranged a series of activities, such as a theater festival and exhibitions with themes related to rural life, to provide a cultural feast for the locals.
Villager Yu Xiaoqin (1st R) visits an art exhibition at Caijiapo Village in Huyi District, Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, June 21, 2023. (Xinhua/Sun Zhenghao)
Yu Xiaoqin, a 72-year-old Caijiapo native, said her life used to be monotonous. "In the past two years, however, I have watched dramas and listened to rock music and symphonies in the wheat fields. I hate to miss out on any of these," she said.
"The purpose of the art experiment is to promote rural development. We want to enrich the villagers' lives through art so that they can experience a richer spiritual and material world," Cui said.