The 2023 Longyou Water Pulse Art Festival, initiated and curated by a group of returning art youth, opened on September 26 at the Dananmen of Longyou County, Zhejiang Province.
With the theme of "Thousands of Growth, Water Veins and Dragon Tours", this art exhibition with "Water Veins" as the core is to highlight the artistic charm of the thousand-year-old town, promote the development of local tourism and culture, and promote rural revitalization.
The opening ceremony of the Longyou Water Pulse Art Festival
Returning youth create contemporary art exhibitions for the thousand-year-old city
Longyou County belongs to Quzhou City, Zhejiang Province, with a long history, the "contempt" ancient state built here in the Spring and Autumn Period, rich water system has given birth to such as the Hehuashan site of the earliest ground structure after human beings walked out of the cave, the Qingyu site of the world's earliest rice cultivation remains, and Longtian Redwood Town, Longyou Grottoes, Longyou Yan, Tuanshiwan, Dananmen Historical and Cultural District along the river.
This art festival invited more than 130 artists from home and abroad to create public environment and residential facilities on the Dananmen Historical and Cultural District, Xikou Future Village, Xikou Old Street Riverside Area, and Mud Art Museum, outlining the water vein picture of contemporary public art and experimental art creation. The exhibition area includes two exhibition areas, 4 art zones and 13 art core circles, covering experimental art, fiber art, public art, video art, painting, sculpture, forum lectures, art performances and other diversified art forms, involving more than 130 artists from 5 countries and more than 400 groups of artworks, jointly exploring the dialogue and integration between traditional culture and contemporary art, bringing a new possibility for the innovation and construction of ancient city and rural culture.
Song Hongquan's artwork "Kun"
As a young man returning to Longyou, Wu Qinfen, chief planner of the Water Pulse Art Festival, introduced, "The word 'thousands' is taken from the cultural accumulation of Longyou's '10,000-year-old civilization, thousand-year-old ancient city, and century-old merchant gang' and the practice of Longyou of '10,000 projects'. The word 'growth' means that relying on water culture, the broad and profound and endless Longyou water culture continues to evolve and sublimate. ”
"This event is not like an exhibition hall such as an art museum, where the audience receives a lot of information in a very concentrated time, but in the process of browsing, like tourism, they naturally feel the spirit conveyed by art." "Longyou's artistic presentation this time is from public space to private space, large space into small space, big world in small rooms, and new atmosphere in old houses." At the 2023 Longyou Water Pulse Art Forum held during the festival, Professor Song Weiguang, executive editor of China Sculpture Magazine and deputy director of the Academic Committee of the School of Fine Arts of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, said, "I think this kind of cross-experience public art is experimental, landing in Longyou, a land that exudes ancient culture and artistic atmosphere, with strong growth and continuity. ”
Event forum site
The festival lasts for three months and ends on December 26th. The artist will deeply cooperate with enterprises and schools in Longyou County, as well as create works according to local conditions in rural areas. Combine art with life, blend with enterprises, integrate with the countryside, match with industry, stimulate the potential of Longyou culture and art, build an economic and technological platform, and cultivate an incubator for the market and brand. For the vision of the art festival, curator Ding Nan introduced that the culture of water has a strong immersion and connection, and hopes that the works and exhibitions can be as moist and silent as water, and can be connected with the local culture and the life of the local public, so as to promote the economic development of the local town and countryside through art, and then drive the transformation of art-related industrial products and crops, and activate and empower the local economy through art.
Art organically integrates various channels to show the new charm of the ancient town
The Dragon Travel Dynasty has come out of 162 champions and jinshi, and has the reputation of "Confucian Style Jia in One County". The water of the Qu River flows like a jade belt here, and the Lingshan River meets the two rivers in Longyou territory, forming a unique water system style of "two rivers meet one dragon", and it is also said in history that there are cultural accumulations of 10,000-year-old civilization, thousand-year-old ancient cities and century-old merchant gangs. Through the art exhibition, Longyou's water history and culture of "born by water, beautiful by water, and prosperous by water" will be disseminated.
In addition to the scattered art decoration exhibitions, the Water Pulse Art Festival adopts the methods of "art + agricultural cultural tourism", "art + industry", "art + countryside" and "art + cultural creativity" to enrich and improve the construction of local villages, improve the living environment, drive tourism, increase tourism income such as transportation, accommodation, catering, scenic spots, etc., improve local employment, increase the income of local culture and art industry, attract investment from foreign resources, promote regional business cooperation, and consolidate the results of rural prosperity.
A mud art museum converted from an old hydroelectric power station
In this art festival, Longyou County and Jingdezhen Ceramic University signed a framework agreement on campus-site cooperation, and a considerable number of students from Jingdezhen Ceramic University came to create locally during this art festival, and more young artists will come to Longyou in the future to carry out more diversified creative possibilities. Zheng Dongmei, director of the experimental art teaching and research office of the School of Fine Arts of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, believes that in this art festival, these young students came to Longyou to create art and produced a lot of excellent works, which is the embodiment of art truly serving the society and serving the countryside, and in the future, through continuous deepening cooperation, it will add fresh strength and creative vitality to the economic and cultural construction of counties like Longyou.
Participating artist Zou Cao said that it was beyond imagination to hold such a large-scale art festival in a county-level city. Longyou takes art as an engine to empower tourism with art and enhance the influence of the entire city.
Wang Lei, a distinguished professor of "Double Dragon" Scholar of Zhejiang Normal University who came to Longlong for the third time, was inspired by the landscape and humanities here and created works with local characteristics with the team. One of the works, "Symbiosis", is made of old clothes of local people into various forms of bamboo shoots, expressing the spirit of Longyou locals striving for the upper reaches and thriving.
Wang Lei's team's work "Symbiosis"
In this art festival, artists from all over the world create different forms of art works through natural and local materials, combined with the perception of natural life and human civilization, so that the public can better understand and experience nature and people, life and civilization, aiming to explore the dialogue and integration between traditional culture and contemporary art, and bring a new possibility for the innovation and construction of ancient city and rural culture.
The diversified energy radiated by the art festival will be of great significance to Longyou County's local economic development, brand image improvement, industrial technology breakthrough, integration of modern art and classics, art rural construction and cultural exchanges. The relevant person in charge of Longyou County said that he will take this event as an opportunity to insist on the revitalization of water culture to drive the comprehensive revitalization of urban and rural civilization, cultural creativity and cultural tourism, and concentrate on creating a number of water culture "golden business cards" with both "cultural taste" and "market power", adding artistic charm to the pearl city in Longyou region.