STILL LIFE IN THE CITY

BY HATTY lIU

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STILL LIFE IN THE CITY

BY HATTY lIU

Building artist villages away from the hustle and bustle

走進那些城市邊緣的藝術棲息地

I f the 19th-century European stereotype of the artist is a depressive genius in a drafty garret， the 20th-century American cliché is of artists taking over post-industrial urban lofts， scratching out a living in a high-ceilinge warehouse before they are priced out by gentrifyin forces.

China is no different.

The 21st-century Chinese art scene has areas like Beijing's 798 Art D istrict， whose graff tied fa?ades and rusty pipes can pass at a distance for bohem ia Bushwick or Shoreditch， London. However， in the northeast quadrant of Beijing's Chaoyang District，there is a set of art communities of a “postagricultural” character that is unique to the story o Chinese urban development.

The village of Feijiacun （費家村） is a 10-m inute bus ride from the second-last stop on Beijing's Subway Line 14. A dusty road leads from a traditional paifang-style gate past a line of scrappy groceries and diners； the w indow less high-rises，cranes， and other signs of Beijing's remorseless construction drive are not visible from the m idd le the village street， which is instead traversed by stra dogs and bikes loaded with fresh produce， small restaurants， and shops. However， now and then， th road opens onto vine-covered entrances of what seem to be traditional courtyard homes adorned w ith signs in vivid colors， impeccably spelled English， and sleek typefaces in contrast to the chea signage of the noodle shop a few steps away.

Feijiacun， though the smallest village by area in Chaoyang District's Cuigezhuang County， is one of the 10 major art districts of Beijing. Painters，photographers， tattoo artists， and f lm distribution companies live and work side by side with the former villagers and new ly arrived migrant worker attracted to the city's outskirts by affordable rent. I the m idd le of the village， a former pickled vegetabfactory houses the Shangri-la Cultural and Arts Community， one of the larger art communities in the district. There you can fnd the airy new rehearsal and training center of the Beijing Dance Theater， an internationally renowned contemporary dance troupe，and a number of smaller tenants ranging from potters and sculptors to the Red Gate Gallery international residency program.

Huantie Art City consists of several buildings designed specifically for artists

“M ost regular peop le don't know about us， but artists have been com ing here for a long time，” said Tan， the property manager of the Shangrila Community who wished to go by his surname. “Most people have heard of 798， and they're of course a bigger deal than us， but we actually got started earlier. What the artists here are looking for is a peaceful and affordable environment to work in and above all， a quiet place to live.”

POlITICS OF SPACE

Art districts and villages are seen in many Chinese urban areas， including Shanghai， Chengdu and X i'an. Beijing's art villages， however， are undoubted ly among the most wellknown. The most famous village of them all， Caochangdi （草場地）， is actually a little closer geographically to 798 and more used to being the center of the action than Tan's earlier generalization would suggest. Located just a fve-m inute bus ride northeast of 798 in the Dashanzi Sub-District of Chaoyang District， Caochangdi made waves when Ai Weiwei，arguably China's most controversial artist， built his house and studio com pound， 258 FAKE Studio， in the neighborhood in 1999.

Though considered an odd choiceof neighborhood at the time， Ai was soon joined by prestigious domestic and international colleagues like the Peking Fine Arts Gallery and Galerie U rs-M eile from Lucerne. Architects and media alike have been struck by the visual of kooky sculptures，international gallery shows， and China's fnest avant-garde sensibilities being made in close proxim ity to chickens， sheep， and the marginal and m igratory parts of Chinese society.

“It's under the radar， it's not p retentious， and there are the large spaces and freedom to move and do w ithout all the eyes of those living w ith all the norm s of society looking on，” M ary-Ann Ray and Robert M angurian， architects and urban researchers， told TWOC， exp laining the appeal that the village holds for artists as well as them selves.

Ray and M angurian are the p rincipals behind BASE Studio， a Beijing architectural think-tank， and the authors of Caochangdi， Beijing Inside Out， an architectural and sociological study of the contem porary transformation of Caochangdi. They say they discovered neighbourhood almost by accident， when the p roject space they leased in 798 was reappropriated by the district cu ltural department and they needed to relocate on the fy. In a book lecture given at the London School of Econom ics， Ray noted that in this way，BASE also became another “illegal”resident in a village made up of mostly illegal construction and “ad-hoc，mongrel architecture”.

The urban village （城中村， village w ithin the city） is a description applied to Caochangdi， Feijiacun and several hundred other locations in Beijing，though they are more prevalent in Southern China. As Chinese cities spraw l outwards， villages located on the outskirts of cities have seen their agricultural land purchased by the government to allow new construction while the villagers themselves were permitted to remain on residential land. The concept of rural collective land-ownership，which has remained after the Maoist period， creates ambiguities for the expropriation of residential village land that lead to higher costs of relocation and compensating and relocating villagers—as well as risk of potential dispute—than is considered worthwhile to many developers.

These days， rural collectives in urban areas in China can transform themselves into collectively owned property companies. Villagers who have lost their agricultural land have a new livelihood in remodelling or adding onto their traditional singlestorey dwellings， which can be rented out to the “foating population” of m igrant workers from the countryside，workers driven out of the urban core by rising costs of living， as well as creative professionals and artists.

Caochangdi and Feijiacun were both once imperial burial grounds of the Q ing Dynasty， and later agricultural peop le's communes. They also saw sem i-privatized industrial development in the post-1978 reform era. Architecture that refects both the agricultural and industrial development eras can be seen in these neighbourhoods. Feijiacun even has a side street full of studios in barracklike brick buildings complete with rusty gates and uniform ly numbered door-plates， though these turned out to have been built in the m id-2000s by a developer that the village collective contracted due to rising demand from artists.

Because construction in the urban villages is mostly illegal and unregulated， it results in ultra-dense development poorly served by public utilities. In contrast to the slumlike density associated w ith villages in Guangzhou and Shenzhen，Caochangdi， and Feijiacun still have courtyards， felds and an average building height of less than three storeys. Nonetheless， even in Beijing the term “urban village” conjures an image of lawlessness and poverty. Tan objected to Feijiacun being considered an urban village， however much the shoe technically f ts.

“Urban village is not a good concept—I don't want that label to be applied here，” he said. “Artists have been settling here for a long time， before a lot of the development, before there was even much m igrant housing， and they come here because it's actually a nicer environment than the city.”

Their image problems aside， villages w ithin the urban spraw l have an undeniable economic appeal. Lofts for rent in Caochangdi are currently advertised online for as low as 0.8 RMB per square meter per day， while most cost two to three RMB per square meter per day. In nearby Huantie Arts District and Feijiacun，the prices are even lower， with most spaces currently advertised at below two RMB per square meter. According to Atron， China's web portal for artrelated news， until two years ago all long-term tenants in Huantie were paying 0.8-0.9 RMB per square meter. Though artists can spend tens of thousands of RM B renovating their studios before moving in， these prices are a steal in a city where， according to an investigation by the China Offce Research Council in 2014， off ce spaces have rented for an average of 311 RM B per square meter per month.

As Tan noted， there's also an aesthetic appeal for the artist in an urban village as well. Ai Weiwei's FAKE Studio responsible for designing the iconic brick-faced lofts in Caochangdi， which， according toMangurian and Ray， are all illegal. Ai's austere， factory-style designs were meant to be a hybrid of the New York loft and the traditional Chinese courtyard house. The land was leased from the village leader taken at the studio's own risk of future expropriation. The precariousness of life in the village echoes the disappearing courtyard homes of Beijing that Ai's architecture is supposed to evoke.

PlANNED AND UNPlANNED

Caochangdi and Feijiacun， as well as the major art district of Songzhuang in Tongzhou District， are considered to be “natural” art villages. This label，according to Ray in her lecture， means that they sprang up organically to meet some demands of labor， and artists and other groups have since focked there in search of peace， space， and affordable rent. This is in contrast to places like Chaoyang District's Jiuchang Art District， the No. 1 International Art District （just 3 kilometers north of Feijiacun）， and 798 itself.

A former pickled vegetable factory now houses one of the many artist workshops in the Shangri-la Community in Feijiacun

Rather than ad-hoc and illegal development， these districts have seen signifcant sponsorship from corporations and the local government. Some， like Jiuchang，Huantie Art City， and Tongzhou District's Dagao Art District， are funded by a single corporation that are purposely seeking to develop art districts and sub-lease workspaces to artists. On the other hand， most of the property in 798 is offcially managed by the Seven-Star Electronics Corporation， which was incorporated of collective work units that formerly occupied the factories of the comp lex， a tw ist upon the phenomenon of agricultural collectives turned to property-holding companies.

China's Eleventh Five Year Plan （2006-2010） identifed the development of China's cultural and creative industries as a national econom ic priority and encouraged the development of creative industry hubs in major cities. City governments responded w ith their own policy outlines. The Beijing municipal government's “11-5 Period Cultural and Creative Industry Development Plan” offered tax incentives and grants to city districts seeking to establish creative industry hubs.

Located further northeast of Caochangdi is one of the unique areas in Beijing. Here， the railroad that runs past 798 term inates in a gigantic circle enclosing a 9000-acre area in which the Huantie （環(huán)鐵， Ring Rail） Art District can be found. “Harmony”-line trains from the Chinese National Railway Track Test Center regularly loop past a motley scene of art galleries and lofts interspersed among working fsheries， vegetable patches， a dairy farm， a golf course， and the national museums of f lm， railway， and aviation models.

Though arguably even more rural and settled by a more “ad-hoc” crew than Caochangdi， Huantie encloses both ad-hoc villages and a large area known as Huantie Art City， an art community that is legally leased from the Chaoyang District by Huantie Times Art. This is a corporation formed in 2005 with the specifc aim of seeking out land to lease to the art community. Its development strategy is a fam iliar one in China's housing construction boom： the corporation f rst built faux-vintage lofts and even some a bizarre-looking post-modernist structures， then waited for tenants to arrive. Due to the area's low cost andproxim ity to 798， the plan worked.

However， in 2014， reporters for Atron found that by the early 2010s， the district was becom ing so depopulated that some tenants paid less rents now than when they had f rst moved in. The “bizarrechitecture” appeared empty or were not occupied by long-term，live-and-work tenants. This was attributed to new construction that impeded transportation in and out of the district and degraded the peaceful， communal rural character that artists had been seeking from their exodus from the city. Atron reporters estimated that only 45 percent of Huantie's tenants were still traditionally conceived artists. More commercialized creative industries， such as game design or f lm distribution f rms， have moved into the area as artists moved out.

Nonetheless， many artists expressed a w illingness to stay even as the neighbourhood character changed， as the legality of their lease gave them stability compared to fellow artist based in ad-hoc villages elsewhere. It seems not all artists can be generalized as chasers of marginal and precarious conditions.

Even in an ad-hoc village like Caochangdi， which has traded on a marginal and countercultural character from the start， government support can have benef ts. Threatened in 2010 with developer interest，Caochangdi was rescued from demolition by a round of media events and petitions from the international art community whose success was signalled when village leaders got the art district designated a Cultural Industry Zone. This slotted Caochangdi into the category of urban communities that the nation pledged to support and actually increase under the Eleventh Five Year Plan. According to China Culture Daily， a number of tenants in 798 have also petitioned for greater governmental oversight and “education” among landlords of the goals of national creative industry development， due to shady sub-leasing practices.

IMITATING lIFE

The dusty road leading from Feijiacun's gate term inates in a T-crossing resembling a scene out of a ganji （趕集）， weekly market days that county towns across China host for their surrounding villages. Am idst a row of butchers， rotisseries， and small restaurants， there are vendors hawking shoes in scream ing colors and music pounding from a stereo outside a tiny， two-chair hair salon. As w ith many urban villages， there are also coal burning furnaces， trash，and the detritus of numerous illegal constructions dotting the roads. In this part of the neighborhood， there is not much of the serenity Tan spoke of，and nothing that recalls the aesthetic as the vine-covered courtyard or w icker tables in front of the Beijing Dance Theatre.

The village certainly seems like a world apart from the loft of co-owned by actor-turned-photographer Weng Yang and his friends， newcomers who moved to Feijiacun only four months ago in search of an affordable space for their new business， Su Studio. The studio's interior is made up of pristine white walls， foor-to-ceiling windows， and a few choice Apple electronics. The courtyard and the low walls of the compound block out most of the noise from the street. Yet Weng stresses that his attraction to the village is not just owing econom ic and other considerations removed from the life of the neighborhood outside.

“I'd say econom ics are still the primary reason—here the rent is lower， even lower than some other art villages. But there's a bigger context whether you do photography like us，or sculpture or painting， as an artist you look for a certain ambience （氛圍），” Weng said. “You can't set up a studio like ours in a housing estate （小區(qū)）； you can't create where there's no ambience.”

Though not a primary motivator fo his move to Feijiacun， the communit of artists and villagers is something Weng said he has come to appreciate since setting up the studio.

“Everybody here walks the same path， as artists， and there's a lot of opportunity to exchange—though you'll fnd our work a little more commercially oriented than some of the other artists，” he adm itted. “But the village ambience is what I aspire to creatively： creation comes from lif or actually， it depends on life. We're not holed up in ［the studio］， thinking of the villagers as these rustics that don't go w ith our image.”

For the Beijing Dance Theatre， the village ambience has also brought practical benef ts. Parents and adult students arriving for the company's weekend recreational ballet classes said they were impressed by the two 600-square-meter rehearsal studios， which speaks of a level of professionalism not conveyed by cramped studios inside malls and housing estates in the city. “Ambience” is also used to describe the vaulted ceilings， sunlit corridors，and wooden slide taking up one whole storey in the waiting area—visitors expect these touches from a contemporary dance troupe. There's even parking inside the compound，like nowhere else in Beijing.

“In a village， there's nothing more or less than the basics of life around us， and as artists put that toward our creation， whatever it is we do，”Weng refected. “So it's really us that depend on the village， not the other way around.”