China Xiaokang Network Exclusive Article
Wen | "Xiaokang" and a reporter of China Xiaokang Network
Through the aesthetic economy, let China's countryside truly become a world-class aesthetic product, so that the beauty of becoming a productivity comparable to science and technology can be released to the greatest extent in the countryside - this is the wish of Guo Peng, vice mayor of Jiaozuo Municipal People's Government, former member of the Standing Committee of Jiaozuo Municipal Party Committee and secretary of Xiuwu County CPC Committee. He believes that the Chinese countryside in 2035 will become the link between China and the world, local and international, art and life, become a home for retaining nostalgia and inheriting cultural context, and become a hometown for everyone in the city to yearn for and rest assured.
Photography / Ning Ying
"Sometimes, I think big cities are better because it's easier and faster to live in big cities. In fact, this is my view when I was a child, and my current view is that the Great South Slope Village is better. In the inaugural issue of "Great South Slope" magazine, Zhao Yihan, an 11-year-old girl, wrote this text.
Why does she like the current Village of Great South Slope? Because the village has undergone a unique transformation.
This is an ordinary village in Xiuwu County, Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, located in the Taihang Mountains, close to the Yuntai Scenic Area of the Weijin Bamboo Forest Qixian Yin Yong Land, relying on coal mining in the 1970s to achieve rapid economic development, when the village was very rich, and thus created a certain number of public buildings, and later with the depletion of resources, the village went into decline. In 2019, The Great Nanpo Village achieved poverty alleviation through the targeted poverty alleviation policy, and in the next year, a consortium covering various active kinetic energy such as aesthetic practice, cultural exploration, social aesthetic education, nature education, local construction, and architectural landscape was launched here, and the Great South Slope has since embarked on the road of "aesthetic economy".
In Xiuwu County, there are many places that are awakened and activated by aesthetics like Dananpo Village, and Guo Peng, vice mayor of Jiaozuo Municipal People's Government, former member of the Standing Committee of Jiaozuo Municipal Party Committee and secretary of Xiuwu County CPC Committee (Editor's Note: When Guo Peng was interviewed by Xiaokang magazine and China Xiaokang Network reporter, his wish was to make China's countryside truly become world-class aesthetic products through aesthetic economy, and let the beauty of becoming comparable to science and technology be released to the greatest extent in the countryside. He believes that the Chinese countryside in 2035 will become the link between China and the world, local and international, art and life, become a home for retaining nostalgia and inheriting cultural context, and become a hometown for everyone in the city to yearn for and rest assured.
Aesthetic education for the whole people, so that aesthetics can be realized
"Xiaokang" China Xiaokang Network: In the few days of Xiuwu's interview, we saw that the investment promotion here was fruitful, the project construction was in full swing, and we also felt the local people's yearning and pursuit of a better life. What are the core characteristics of Xiuwu County's economy?
Guo Peng: Xiuwu County is a county with a relatively weak industrial base, but rich in culture, ecology, tourism and rural resources. In recent years, the core characteristics of Xiuwu County's economic development can be summarized by "science and technology + aesthetics". Science and technology are used to boost our advanced manufacturing industry; aesthetics is used to boost our agriculture and service industries, especially the integrated development of cultural tourism and cultural creativity. That is to say, the economy of Xiuwu County is characterized by the integrated development of two-wheel drive advanced manufacturing and cultural tourism.
Xiuwu County's understanding of aesthetics has undergone a process of gradual deepening. In 2016, Xiuwu County took the lead in proposing the aesthetics of party building in the country. At that time, our idea was to innovate in the field of party building, so we tried to carry out some aesthetic transformation of the past "village team department", and designed the slogan and font of party building, and extracted the eight words of "people first, the Communist Party is good", and the results achieved good results, which were welcomed by the people and recognized by society. In 2018, we proposed a global aesthetic, allowing Xiuwu County to create a new path in the creation of global tourism. In 2020, we propose that aesthetics can lead the comprehensive development of economy, culture, society and ecology, and this year is also a year in which the "aesthetic economy" fully blossoms, taking aesthetics as the starting point, closely combining aesthetics with high-quality development of the county, and Xiuwu initially explored a set of feasible development models.
"Xiaokang" • China Xiaokang Network: In the process of promoting the aesthetic economy, is there any resistance?
Guo Peng: The biggest obstacle is everyone's prejudice against the countryside, believing that the aesthetics of the sense of luxury are only suitable for big cities and urban people. Everyone has the right to pursue a better life. Premium sense and high quality belong to everyone. We must firmly believe that everyone, whether in urban or rural areas, has aesthetic needs and abilities.
Xiuwu County has launched a national aesthetic education plan, from the aesthetic architectural space, aesthetic teaching materials learning and aesthetic art appreciation of the three paths, to enhance the aesthetic ability of the public, mobilize more people to participate in the aesthetic realization of local cultural and ecological resources, jointly create wealth, and finally achieve the leapfrog development of Xiuwu.
Spend 75% of your energy on selecting talent
"Xiaokang" • China Xiaokang Network: This year is the beginning of consolidating and expanding the achievements in poverty alleviation and achieving effective connection with rural revitalization, what role has the aesthetic economy of Xiuwu County played in rural revitalization?
Guo Peng: In the past, we had two misunderstandings in rural construction. The first misconception is that we pay more attention to the modernization of living infrastructure, investing a lot of money in this regard, but not paying much attention to the modernization of people. Infrastructure improvement alone cannot retain young people, nor can it change the trend of many midwestern countryside gradually withering away. The second misunderstanding is that we believe that the countryside does not need to be beautiful, as long as the hardware is upgraded, the people are willing to live in such a place. In fact, when a thousand villages are lost and nostalgia is lost, even the people are unwilling to live in such an environment.
Based on these two points, we have specially introduced aesthetics into rural construction and refined the "1355" rural revitalization aesthetic path. "1" is led by party building. "3" is based on the introduction of high-level talent teams, mass mobilization, and diversified input. The first "5" is based on the aesthetic design and value realization of the five major rural cultures of "rural natural features, rural architecture, rural folklore, rural industry, and rural production and lifestyle". The second "5" is to achieve the five visions of "retaining nostalgia, inheriting cultural context, mobilizing the enthusiasm of indigenous people, aesthetic education for the whole people and relatively balanced input and output".
"Xiaokang" · China Xiaokang Network: In the "basic means" of the realization of the "1355" rural revitalization aesthetic path, the first thing you emphasize is high-level talents, for a small county town, is it difficult to introduce high-level talents?
Guo Peng: The premise of aesthetic empowerment is to attract high-level aesthetic talents. Since 2016, Xiuwu County has pioneered the county aesthetic economic road, based on the advantages of thousand-year-old counties, China's longevity hometown, revolutionary old areas and grain high-yield areas, etc., to introduce a large number of high-level aesthetic talent teams, in the past 5 years, we have invited more than 70 designers at home and abroad, involving architecture, plane, landscape, lighting, content refinement and other fields.
With the aesthetic talents going deep into the fields, Xiuwu County has successfully activated and realized the red, rural, traditional culture and ecological and other geo-resources through aesthetic empowerment, achieved connotative leapfrog development, promoted the joint creation of wealth between urban and rural areas, and explored a new path for the underdeveloped areas in the central and western regions.
For example, in the aesthetic economic practice of the whole Great Nanpo Village, we invited Zuo Jing, associate professor of the School of Journalism and Communication of Anhui University, who is the general director of the entire Great Nanpo Village project, and his role is to integrate all resources and upgrade the local culture of the Great Nanpo Village as the fundamental aspect of rural revitalization. In terms of art curation and graphic design, he has provided a lot of talent support and operational guidance. He also practiced the rural examination directly in Xiuwu, and the Great Nanpo Village Art Center was from his big hand.
For another example, in the spatial improvement of Zaiwan Village in Qixian Town, through Zuo Jing's introduction, we invited He Wei, a professor at the School of Architecture of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, who built this typical plain village without scenery, style and industry into a "living museum of residential houses in northern Henan after 40 years of reform and opening up", on the basis of retaining the original texture of the village, the real rural landscape and the traces of spontaneous construction, and connected, enlarged and interpreted in the form of architecture, landscape, public art and narrative, perhaps it can provide a reference for the revitalization of such ordinary villages in China.
Activating 2019, Great Nanpo Village achieved poverty alleviation through precise poverty alleviation policies, and in the next year, a consortium covering various active kinetic energy such as aesthetic practice, cultural exploration, social aesthetic education, nature education, local construction, architectural landscape, etc. was launched here, and Great Nanpo Village was awakened by aesthetics and has since embarked on the road of "aesthetic economy". Photography / Ning Ying
We also asked Xu Xiaomeng, the architect in charge of ten domain architecture, bachelor of architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, and master of architecture at Columbia University, to design the Xiuwu aesthetic project "Sky Courtyard", which is located in Zaiwan Village, which subverts the design mode of the conventional homestay and hotel "square grid" to create an unprecedented unique guest room experience, the part below the line of sight in the room is completely blocked, the part above the line of sight is completely open, and the sky and mountain views unfold like a picture scroll, and now it has become an Internet celebrity punch card.
There are many more such examples. Whether nationally or globally, teams of architects can basically be divided into two categories. One is the well-known architect in urban construction, the asking price is relatively high, for most of China's ordinary counties, including Xiuwu, in the early stage of the aesthetic economy, there is not necessarily a need for architects who have achieved fame and high prices. There is also a category of young and affectionate graduate architects. In fact, their level is not inferior to those of well-known architects, who are willing to make some contributions to the aesthetic education of rural children and the good life of the county people. If such a group of young and outstanding architects can be absorbed into the county, it can be said that no matter which county has the opportunity to complete the road of rural revitalization and development led by aesthetics.
Therefore, I put a lot of energy into screening top talents for martial arts training, and after the selection, I also had to create a platform for them to display their talents in the revitalization of the countryside, which was my main job.
Xiaokang: In your opinion, can this aesthetic path that Xiuwu has explored so far be copied elsewhere? What are you looking forward to?
Guo Peng: I think the "1355" rural revitalization aesthetic path explored by Xiu wu can be completely copied. Although the local culture of each village is different, the ideas and models of aesthetic monetization are highly consistent. It is just that the promotion and replication of this time is very different from the past, it is a promotion that respects indigenous peoples and local culture, and there will be no uniformity, urbanization, and extreme imbalance between input and output. My vision is to truly become world-class aesthetic products in China's countryside through the aesthetic economy, and to maximize the release of beauty that is comparable to the productivity of science and technology in the countryside.
("Xiaokang", China Xiaokang Network Exclusive Special Article)
This article was published in the late October 2021 issue of Xiaokang