"Rural Reconstruction through Art": Institutionalized Participatory Art in the Countryside

In the past few decades, a number of artists spontaneously produced participatory art in the countryside to question the cultural hegemony of the urban-centric mode of China’s social transformation. When Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the national campaign "Rural Revitalization" at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, this contemporary art phenomenon was brought to a governmental attention and was subsequently incorporated into the campaign with the name "Rural Reconstruction through Art." This paper explores how Chinese government institutionalizes contemporary participatory art in the countryside through the national art movement "Rural Reconstruction through Art." I examine the transformations of several former independent rural art projects, such as the Bishan Project, the Qingtian Plan and the Yangdeng Art Cooperatives, and investigate how the pressures of recent cultural policies push these independent projects to be institutionalized – the Bishan Project is transformed as a cultural tourist project; the Qingtian Plan is involved in a local ‘Communist Party building’ project, and the Yangdeng Art Cooperatives is turned into a college art education based. Participatory art which was ever considered the most popular art genre in these projects due to its representation of local voices has been institutionalized as a top-down enunciation of Communist ideology. I argue that although "Rural Reconstruction through Art" may have a positive intention of showing a new rural China to the world, the excessive governmental interference which diminishes the projects’ independence needs to be paid enough attention.