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ABOUT SONG ZHUANG (XIAOPU) -TONG ZHOU
DISTRICT AND THE AREA
The studios in Song Zhuang (Beijing's
Tongzhou District)
- it is about 5 minutes walk from the
bus stop (public transportation) to your
studio, and has a wonderful view of the
village. Supermarkets,
cafe/bar, art museums, art galleries, shops,
restaurants are five or fifteen minutes
walk. The
studios are about one hour drive (public
transportation) to the
Tiananmen Square,
and half hour to
Beijing
Capital
International
Airport
(http://en.bcia.com.cn).
A short distance from Beijing's city center
and the complexities of urban life, lies the
Tongzhou district that hosts some of China’s
most intriguing art communes. Formed in
1994, over 300 artists dealing with
different medium and diverse artistic styles
chose to settle and build an environment and
life style suitable for their needs. The
Tong Zhou district hosts a number of
different peasant villages such as Xiaopu,
Da Xingzhuang, Xindian and the biggest of
them all Songzhuang village. These villages
have attracted artists due to their cheap
rental fees and the relative solitude and
detachment many artists seek. This area is
seen by many as the future of Chinese
contemporary art and is the place some of
china’s most famous artist such as Fang
Lijun, Yue Minjun, Liu Wei and Yang Shaobin
have established themselves. The story of
Tong Zhou is not a simple one, it goes back
to the days of Yuan Ming Yuan, China's first
artists' village, set up in the late 1980s
near Beijing's old Summer Palace. The Yuan
Ming Yuan village reflected the burst of
experimental art sparked by the market
reforms of the late 70’s. Unfortunately this
new phenomenon of untamed self expression
came to an end in 1995 when the village,
attracting too many “free spirits” was shut
down by the authorities. This is after
China’s experimental art suffered a big blow
when the country’s largest approved avant-guard
art exhibition was forced to close in the
spring of 1989.
After the original artist village
YuanMingYuan was shut down scattering its
inhabitants to different directions, members
of the original village settled in in Xiaopu
and Songzhuang and continued exploring and
experimenting with contemporary art.
SongZhuang artist village is probably the
biggest art commune in the world where
artists live in traditional court-yard
houses that were found suitable to transform
into studios. The SongZhuang artists come
from all over China and form an extremely
diverse artistic community where members
inspire each other with their different
approaches to art and life. This diversity
has created a powerful and ripe environment
for artistic experimentation and
creativity.
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