Illustration: Liu Xiangya/GT

Whether it's the contemporary art installations rising amidst the wheat fields of Sankui township in Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province, or the pop art of Butong Art Town in Hebei Province, a growing number of artistic shows and events have recently been unfolding nationwide during the peak summer travel season. 

Instead of being presented in the bourgeois cultural spaces of major metropolises, these new art spectacles are taking root in rural towns or smaller Chinese cities. Behind this movement is a new trend: The cultural resources of rural areas are now incubating diverse art events.

Art has long been perceived as a cultural game that matters the most to first-tier cities. Be it in urban museums or galleries, art creations seem to be housed within their own ivory towers, awaiting visitors to approach them while remaining distant from their surrounding environment. 

"Even though I work at an art gallery in the CBD, I still feel a disconnect between art and my everyday life," Mandy Liang, a gallery staff member who works in Shanghai and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, told the Global Times. 

Compared with the "disconnection" of art in cities, rural towns seem to actually be capable of merging art and everyday life together. The unique cultural fabric of rural areas allows art to emerge through participatory symbiosis. 

Take the Sankui township's art show as an example. Its art installations draw inspiration from the local terraced fields. Be it sculptures or photography, they seamlessly integrate into the rural background, allowing spectators to walk in the farmland's wind-rippled wheat waves to experience art. 

Such a scene reveals how rural areas' indigenous narratives and landscapes can broaden the inspiration for artistic creation. In other words, it frees art from big-city ivory towers. 

China's rural cultures are particularly diverse. These diverse resources make it easy for art activities in various regions to distinguish themselves from one another. 

For example, the Palian Art Village in Southwest China's Yunnan Province is known for its art events based on local Dai ethnic folk culture. In Fuliang county, Jiangxi Province, multimedia art and installations create a dialogue with the local tea culture and tea farming tradition. Meanwhile, relying on kite-making craftsmanship, Wangjiazhuangzi village in Shandong Province has established its own art and design competition, engaging modern designers to inherit this folk art.

These examples represent only a small fraction of China's rural art practices, but they clearly show a shifting trend that instead of consuming cultural leftovers from urban centers, Chinese rural areas can feed back into the market's development.

In other words, Chinese rural areas are never an afterthought, they are the main stage of art.  

While rural and small-town life brings fresh perspectives to art, hasn't art, in turn, created new opportunities for these areas, especially in boosting local cultural tourism? 

Take Sanshan village in Jingde county, Anhui Province for example. Since being designated as one of the first pilot villages for artistic rural construction in September 2021, the area has developed a tourism route integrating an artist community, farming culture corridor and its iconic lotus-viewing attractions. Over the years, local art tourism has attracted nearly 800,000 visitors. 

Not far away in the same county, Luxi township has blended artistic events, short theater culture and tea traditions to create a trendy new "tea-art lifestyle." What was once an obscure rural area has now welcomed 45,000 visitors, generating tourism revenue of 4.31 million yuan ($600,000) as of 2024. 

The thriving art tourism in rural areas has brought more than just income for villagers, but also can stimulate the internal renewal of a rural area. For instance, the increasing tourist demand naturally creates more employment opportunities for villagers. These sites will also likely attract non-local art talents from other cities and regions. This fluid art demographic can help "sew together" the once big gap between rural areas and metropolitan art-cultural development through their mobile projects and talents. 

"The inspiration drawn from rural areas fills a void in urban creative environments," Ma Yi, an artist-in-residence in Yangshuo county, told the Global Times. 

He also added that many second- and third-tier cities are now also popular among young artists and thanked them for being "good art platforms." With more than 3,000 works of art on display, the recent Baotou Art Expo serves as a good example. It provides a platform not only for emerging young Chinese artists, but also for creators from Russia, Japan, and other countries.

The essence of artistic intervention in rural areas lies in shattering people's fixed understanding of rural culture. The art-rural dynamic is never a one-way street, but rather a reciprocal exchange.

The author is a reporter with the Global Times. life@globaltimes.com.cn