The thousand-year-old town has an international art circle of friends

The secluded river surface, the quaint stone bridge and the wind pavilion, the square, the wharf, the ancient mansion, the glittering millennium ancient town are playing Chinese and foreign classic animation films everywhere, and the audience sits in the pavilion, on the steps, and watches the open-air movie leisurely in the tea house.

During the National Day, residents and tourists of Jinxi Ancient Town in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, enjoyed an international art feast, and they watched 42 classic works from 11 countries such as China, Britain, France, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Japan for free, such as "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace", "The House of Dolls", "The King and the Bird", "The Iliad", "The Wind and the Three Langs" and so on.

This is the 2020 Jinxi Ancient Town Art Festival organized by the Jinxi Town Government and the 18th Swiss FANTASIA International Animation Film Festival, le FRESNOY National Contemporary Art Studio of France, the Consulate General of France in Shanghai, and the Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio.

Jinxi, only a few dozen miles away from Zhouzhuang, is also an ancient water town, but the tourism and cultural industry here has been tepid. How to turn the cocoon into a butterfly to break the problem of "counterattack" is a real problem in front of this town. An art institution located in Jinxi called the Center for Contemporary Art launched an international art residency program to recruit young artists from around the world every year and support artists to create across fields. Based on the cultural and artistic fit, the Jinxi government and the art center carried out project cooperation. After a year of practice, cooperation and exchanges have been established with 16 art institutions, and 34 artists have created in Jinxi Ancient Town, where fishing nets, clothes drying poles, and broken old bricks have been created by artists. Many of them have won art awards internationally, and Jinxi Ancient Town has also been brought into the international art circle by them.

"Youth is the vitality of rural revitalization, so we will focus on youth." The relevant person in charge of Jinxi Town said. As a result, the Jinxi government once again joined hands with several art centers to target animated short films that interested young people.

In June 2019, the first art festival in Jinxi Town opened, and they invited young teachers and artists from eight major art academies in China, such as Tsinghua Academy of Fine Arts and China Academy of Fine Arts, to play international award-winning films in places where crowds gathered on the streets. The artist will explain the background, expression and connotation of the film, and interact with the audience. The festival was held for a month, with weekly performances, and the townspeople began to watch cartoons, posting photos and videos in the circle of friends and Douyin.

The first festival also attracted the attention of several art center collaborators and young artists, who began to help Jinxi plan the festival.

Li Zhenhua, a curator who has curated many important art exhibitions at home and abroad, has promoted the cooperation with the 18th Swiss FANTAS INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FILM FESTIVAL. Liu Zhenchen, a young artist who has been living in France for a long time, curated a selection of films by the French Le Fresnoy National Contemporary Art Studio.

"Due to the epidemic, French artists and performing troupes cannot come to Jinxi, but we have brought the animation film "The King and the Bird", which is the first animated feature film in France, which can be regarded as a 'national treasure' animation in France, and will be screened in Jinxi at the same time as the Chinese classic animation "The Haunting of the Heavenly Palace" to promote cultural exchanges between the two countries." Ke Meiyan, Cultural Consul of the Consulate General of France in Shanghai, attended the opening ceremony of the festival, and she believes that the Jinxi Ancient Town Art Festival provides a powerful platform for cultural dissemination and cooperation between the two sides, hoping that through this art festival, more French elements and French artists can be brought to the audience of the water town.

High-class friends and artists gathered. Shi Rui, Deputy Consul General of the Consulate General of Switzerland in Shanghai, attended the opening ceremony of the festival, and lei Lei, a young animation director, participated in the festival with 4 works such as "Colored Rubik's Cube and Table Tennis", "This Idea is Love", "Big Hands, Big Hands, Bigger Is Better".

This is an international cultural and artistic festival that combines Chinese and Western styles. Classic movies such as "Doll's House", "Iliad", "Love Sigh" and so on were broadcast in the ancient buildings of Jiangnan Water Town, Kunqu opera actors walked into the century-old mansion to sing "Garden Dreams", and Feng Jiannan, a famous artist in his eighties, told him about the process of creating "Nine Colored Deer".

Jinxi Ancient Town Art Festival also offers an international seminar unit. A series of lectures such as "One Man's Art Film Studio", "The Troubles and Quests of Chinese Animators in the 20th Century", and "Chinese Accent in the Language of Animation" brought together a group of experts in the field of art to collide their minds and give interactive lectures with the public, and the ancient town and modern art achieved a perfect integration.

During the National Day holiday, 169,400 people entered the scenic spot of guzhen, and the tourism income of the whole society was about 14 million yuan.

Zhang Yuelin, deputy secretary of the Kunshan Municipal Party Committee, said that increasing the protection of historical and cultural heritage, carefully cultivating new formats of cultural tourism integration, and introducing high-quality culture and art into the ancient town is a new exploration of the path of cultural tourism in the ancient town, and the integration of traditional classic culture and modern classic animation has integrated the ancient town into social development, let art integrate into the lives of the people, further enhance the soft power of culture and the attractiveness of the ancient town, and inject new strong impetus into the development of Jinxi. (Editor, Cultural Supplement Department)

Source: China Youth Daily client