The Bishan Project is one of China’s boldest social experiments in recent years. For six years – from 2010 to 2016 – the rural reconstruction and practical utopian commune project ran its course in Bishan, a small village in the Anhui Province. The invitations the project received for exhibition and presentation abroad incited a national

01/15 debate in China. đđđđđđđđđđThe texts collected in Ou Ning’s Utopia in Practice: Bishan Project and Rural Reconstruction (2020) describe and criticize the social problems caused by China’s overzealous urbanization process. These discourses on contemporary agrarianism and agritopianism resist the doctrines of modernism and Hou Hanru and Ou Ning developmentalism that have dominated China for more than a century, and respond to a global desire for alternative social solutions – in theory Test of Our and action – to today’s environmental and political crises.1 Vision: A đđđđđđđđđđFrom May 25–29, Ou Ning and Hou Hanru carried out the following conversation about the Conversation book on WeChat – between Briançon, Provence- Alpes-Côte d’Azur, France, and Jingzhou, Hubei Province, China. đđđđđđđđđđ*** đđđđđđđđđđHou Hanru: Hi, Ou Ning! In this very strange and challenging lockdown period, I had the chance to read through most of your new book. It’s a very timely contribution to the current need for reflection on the difficulty of continuing to live in a world that has been so dominated and transformed by “globalization” and urbanization. There is a global tendency to “return” to nature – to the countryside – and also to the “local.” (In particular, Rem Koolhaas and AMO’s recent exhibition “Countryside, The Future” at the Guggenheim may trigger discussions on the topic.) At the same time, doubts and “corrections” offered to the modernization model, as well as new values brought on by the pandemic, may constitute a “timely rain.” Renewed interest in the countryside might also be turned into a superficial “fashion.” Your experiments in Bishan, which lasted for years, were very down-to-earth and even “prophetic.” Sometimes their “persistent” idealism was radical. Their value should not be limited to fashionable discussions. đđđđđđđđđđIn many ways, as a matter of fact, this notion of “returning to the origin” is impossible.

e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a Not only is returning impossible, but the “origin” itself has never really existed! What has existed and continues to exist is history, with all sorts of diversities of how human beings live in the world by transforming it and inscribing the process into memory. There have always been entanglements between idealism and realism, between utopianism and “real life.” With the inspiration from the legacy of anarchism, you tried to

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The mind map of Bishan Project by Ou Ning for the exhibition “Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World,” Guggenheim Museum, 2017-2018. Designed by Xiaoma + Chengzi, 2017.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST mobilize public awareness toward embracing of agriculture, the depression of the rural area, social equality, and encouraged independent the atomization of farmers, and the “upside initiatives to realize their own “selves.” down” urban-rural relationship. Some of these “Returning” to the countryside here is about a intellectuals advocate for “rural reconstruction” kind of one-to-one dialogue to enlighten to carry out social reform. everyone’s potentiality, especially for those who have been categorized as peasants and farmers, At least in China, the countryside has already who are often stuck at the bottom of modern 03/15 received and digested shifting crises passed societal structures. If the topic of the along from the cities, for example when the two countryside is now fashionable, and therefore, international financial crises occurred in 1997 another excuse for consumption, then this and 2008. In other words, the countryside has “return” could become a double punishment for long been a “landing site” for crisis those already living in the countryside – people transformation. This did not start with the who stand the risk of enduring more exploitation current pandemic at all. My writings and and ideological injustice. How do you think your practices may have boosted the popularity of book can contribute to the challenge of changing rural issues in public discourse in recent years, this dilemma? especially through a large-scale debate that đđđđđđđđđđOu Ning: Hi, Hanru! Thank you for taking the unfolded in China in 2014. This particular time to read my manuscript and for starting this instance overflowed the circle of rural research dialogue. In fact, the countryside already and reconstruction, and turned it into a national became a “fashion” in the decade before the “clamor.” However, as the collected writings in Covid-19 outbreak. This has been one reaction to my book show, I was alert from the beginning to the problems of over-urbanization. People regard the “gentrification” of the countryside – that is, the countryside as a destination to escape the how the urban middle class poured into, urban problems of overcrowding, air pollution, occupied, and consumed the countryside. This fierce competition for job opportunities, and made for a “population reshuffle” rather than a educational resources. Of course, there are also solution to the depopulation problem in the intellectuals who pay attention to the bankruptcy countryside. I think that the recent arrivals and

The Bishan Supply and Marketing Cooperative, 1970s. Courtesy of Cultural Center of Yi County. đ

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST the indigenous villagers should live and work đđđđđđđđđđThe Chinese quarantined at home under the together to establish an intersubjectivity. impact of the new pandemic would still be However, in the debate, which was taken out of frightened by the return of problems with the context at that time, the opposition completely “food reserve.”2 And the Showa Agricultural ignored this idea. Panic in Japan, brought on by the Great đđđđđđđđđđWhile preparing for the 2009 Shenzhen and Depression of 1929, was one of the major Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of triggers for Japan to launch the Pacific War.

Urbanism\Architecture, I discussed the concept 04/15 Saneatsu Mushanokōji, a Japanese writer who of “ruralism” with Rem Koolhaas. I invited him founded Atarashiki-mura (“New Village,” an and Hans Ulrich Obrist to host the “Shenzhen intentional community) just after WWI, and Marathon” conversation, which also included participated in the “Agrarian Union” movement rural issues. The “Countryside, The Future” before WWII, wrote on a memorial pole in the exhibition that Koolhaas researched and village of Moroyama in 1953: “There is no better prepared for years, whose opening coincided way to keep me alive than this, I will take this with the outbreak of the pandemic, will way.”3 This may explain the “persistence” of the undoubtedly deepen people’s interest in this utopianists. In order to “stay alive,” we really topic worldwide. The exhibition shows the radical need to be able to imagine the future. changes to the rural landscape in different global đđđđđđđđđđHHR: Your interest in the countryside may regions under the neoliberal economy, the have derived from your experience visiting the potentiality of “nonurban” land resources, and village of San Yuan Li, and subsequent research the possibilities that new biotechnology and AI on the social evolution there.4 The emergence technologies bring to agriculture. It also and multiplication of urban villages in the 1990s produces a strong feeling that the European not only produced a new urban texture and architect has great ambitions and surging architectural typologies of the “urban-rural momentum to open up a “new world,” without fringe,” but also gave rise to a mixture and, any sense of the crisis of agrarianism that Asian simultaneously, class differentiation and conflict regions have long been anxious about and are between immigrants (migrant workers) and struggling to maintain. aborigines (native farmers who lost their land but

A page from Ou Ning, Bishan Commune: How to Start Your Own Utopia,đ2010.đMoleskine sketchbook, 108 pages, 13 x 21cm, heavy acid-free paper.

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A film screening part of “Screen Nostalgia,” 2011 Bishan Harvestival. Photo: Hu Xiaogeng, 2011.

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The villagersđhelpedđto install the “Coal and Ice” exhibition in 2012 Yixian International Photo Festival. Photo: Sun Yunfan.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST who, in some cases, benefitted from land sales). urban village was once diagnosed as a “cancer” In this new type of social relationship, an in the eyes of the municipal government, but we unprecedented “autonomous region of urban- made an experimental documentary film to rural integration” was formed. Did this kind of demonstrate its social value. Being in San Yuan research stimulate your interest in “autonomy” Li also inspired my further studies of rural and “communes”? The return of migrant workers society. I wanted to find out about its genes and has brought these experiences back into the different variations. Why did it decay in one wider rural area anew. What inspiration has this 07/15 place, and survive with tenacity in another? This had on the popular push for urbanization, or was the starting point for my later move to the more accurately “townization” (chengzhenhua), countryside. Of course, it is not for seclusion in in recent years? Does this also mean that the nature, it is “self-enlightenment.” Thank you for direction of your experiment of “activating rural providing such an accurate statement. life” is not a romantic “return to nature,” but đđđđđđđđđđThe later “chengzhenhua” did not absorb rather a process of self-enlightenment? the informal vitality of urban villages, because it đđđđđđđđđđON: Without your kind invitation to is a top-down arrangement and reflected more of participate in the Venice Biennale in 2003, the a state will to solve rural problems. “Townization” San Yuan Li project would not have happened. I refers to the use of administrative means and still remember that when you set up the theme national resources to concentrate farmers in “Z.O.U.” (Zone of Urgency), which focused the nearby towns, providing them with orderly and exhibition on the radical urbanization movement standard houses that have been professionally in the Asia-Pacific region, I picked up the planned, while vacated rural homesteads and phenomenon of “urban villages” in Guangzhou to cultivated land are used to develop vacation resonate with your curatorial thoughts. My tourism and industrialized agriculture. This is a interest in San Yuan Li originated from my brief typical modernist rural reconstruction and visit and stay there during my college days, while governance scheme. It still belongs to the Koolhaas’s Great Leap Forward, published in storyline of urbanization, reflecting the 2001, opened my eyes to the “alternative government’s imagination of “modernity” in rural modernity” in the Pearl River Delta. areas. đđđđđđđđđđToday, looking back at the indigenous đđđđđđđđđđThe cost is staggering. In the book, I quoted villagers of San Yuan Li, I realize that the wisdom a report from the National Academy of they radiated in their cramped living space is Governance on the cost of urbanization. The exactly what James C. Scott summed up in his report points out that in the eight years between peasant study as “metis,” or in plain terms, 2013 and 2020, the annual additional financial “cunning.”5 The villagers followed the cost for transforming farmers-turned-migrant- government-stipulated building dimensions on workers into registered urban residents will the ground level. But then they expanded the amount to 226.138 billion yuan. The National construction area as far as possible from the Bureau of Statistics shows that in 2012, the total second floor onwards, thus forming a spectacle number of farmers-turned-workers nationwide of “handshake buildings” with only “one line of was 262.61 million, of whom 163.36 million were sky.” These buildings block out the sun, farmers-turned-migrant-workers. After farmers transforming the streets into dark mazes. A move into urban residential areas, if there is no policeman who is not familiar with “local guarantee of employment opportunities, they will geography” will absolutely not be able to catch even have difficulty paying their electricity bills. hidden criminals. They have created an Therefore, some farmers moved back to the inexpensive, convenient community space that’s village to live their former lives. The National open twenty-four hours a day to new college Academy of Governance report also predicts that graduates and migrant workers without if the 160 million migrant workers all become temporary residence permits. It seems chaotic, registered urban residents at one time, the but in fact it has its own hidden order. In the new minimum additional financial expenditure will era of urbanization, villagers have also reach nearly 1.8 trillion yuan.6 corporatized the traditional village organization. đđđđđđđđđđHHR: As the edges of modernization, rural

Their collective assets not only make dividends e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a areas have always been the object of economic every year, but also maintain large, village-run and political centers’ attempts to cover, security teams. The village association and intervene into, develop, and utilize them. community school (shexue), which was used to Between the government and NGOs, there are all mobilize villagers against Britain during the kinds of elites trying to project their imaginations Opium War, evolved into a new form of autonomy. and schemes into this “marginal zone” in order to đđđđđđđđđđThis is the vitality of Chinese rural society, realize their social ideals. There are peaceful especially in Guangdong, where urbanization inducements and radical revolutions. Whether in began at its earliest in China. This lively, teeming peace or violence, they all take the

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST “improvement” of rural living conditions as a important source of soldiers, which of course premise to try to “reform” the relationship allowed for the militarism necessary to wage between human beings and nature. They are war. During the Pacific War, the Japanese somewhat of the belief that “man is sure to government kicked off the “Imperial Rural conquer nature,” and that the utopian spirit is its Establishment Movement” to ensure the state fundamental motive force. So how can the machine’s control and monopoly over the wishes of the “native” rural residents be countryside. In the United States, Roosevelt’s represented and expressed? The starting point of 08/15 New Deal drummed up vast public resources to your work must also be based on this support agriculture. In addition to coping with contradiction. How do you face it? the food crisis caused by the Great Depression, đđđđđđđđđđON: Rural areas cannot be ignored by any another motivation behind the New Deal was political power in any period. For the premodern, related to the large agricultural population Confucian-driven empires dominated by imperial attached to the land before the rise of largescale power, the countryside was the source of the industrialized agriculture. This population was a suigu (grain tax) and guarded the lifeblood of the very important sources of Roosevelt voters. economy. Settled agriculture itself was the Trump’s election was also inseparable from the ideological basis for the successive dynasties to support of the US agricultural region and the worship the gods of earth and grain together with “Rust Belt.” Politicians have always regarded their ancestries in the temples (sheji, zongmiao), farmers as passive electoral tools. In fact, and to use this practice as the symbol of farmers can and do also actively “create” their legitimacy. Therefore, even if the countryside was own agents and leaders. One can imagine that if “far away from the center,” it would be organized the only farmers left in the United States were by the central power to unite the people and those in Koolhaas’s exhibition who monitor administer the tax incomes in a unified way. “farming” by robots through screens at home, a When China entered the modern era, the large number of agricultural communities would warlords who divided power and separated the die out and the political ecology of the US would country would plunder the wealth of the be more easily controlled by Wall Street. Farmers countryside to support the food supply. The have not been totally deprived, but the decrease Communist Party’s revolution could not have in population will weaken the political influence succeeded without the support of the of this group. countryside. đđđđđđđđđđTherefore, in 2016, several writers wrote đđđđđđđđđđIn the contemporary era, the stability of the books to trace the history of the communitarian countryside remains the singular most important utopian movement in the US in the nineteenth political factor. In Japan, the countryside was an century.7 Some of these authors advocated

“In Bishan We Trust”, the community currency Bishan Hours. Designed by Xiaoma + Chengzi. 2014.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST learning from and reviving the land philosophies potential is very limited. As an outsider with of early intentional communities who put down neither power nor capital, all I can do in the roots in rural areas of the United States, such as countryside is use my own cultural resources to the Shakers. They were, of course, representative improve farmers and villagers’ visibility in of groups who insisted on investing as much society, broaden their contact with the outside manpower as possible, using recyclable natural world, and build platforms within my ability to let energy, and implementing a collective system of them give full play to their intelligence. Under communal ownership of property to run 09/15 limited, realistic conditions, so-called agriculture and communities. “empowerment” and “moralization” are all extravagant to me, and they are also part of an However, as you said, a “return” is impossible on elite rhetoric that I oppose. I prefer the words many levels. But it is necessary to maintain a “mutual aid,” “mutual learning,” and “communal certain number of farmers, to maintain a rural life.” lifestyle, and to operate agriculture in an eco- đđđđđđđđđđHHR: In essence, you firmly believe in the friendly way. These are necessities not only for classic principle of modernity that “knowledge is the sake of sustaining the diversity of human life power,” and hope to bring that through personal or saving an available political force, but also and “autonomous” efforts to a place where because modern nation-states cannot cut ties cultural independence has been lost. That way, with agriculture, rural areas, and farmers. people can rediscover and implement self- đđđđđđđđđđJust imagine if China’s “urbanization” turns esteem and power in various ways, while using all farmers into registered urban residents and communication and sharing as the methods to no one cultivates the land. Wouldn’t that seek equality within this process. As your jeopardize the supply of food and place the experiment in Bishan shows, some form of feeding of the entire population into the risky autonomous community can indeed sprout. waters of international trade and global Because of this real possibility, the project also economic integration? Moreover, farmers are not sparked a repressive response from upper-level “human waste” eliminated by the modernization institutions. The rejection and suppression of the process, as many people think. Their “cunning” diversity of personal and social life and values is wisdom is often unexpected. Their “brain mine” the center of the problem. This is not only China’s (to use James Yen’s term) is rich, but ignored.8 increasingly threatening trend in recent decades, The problem of contemporary Chinese farmers is but also the situation caused by the mainstream that they live at the bottom of an “authority- and increasingly “globalized” forces of driven” society where state power permeates in a developmentalism and capital. At the same time, totalizing way. These farmers can neither return the forces of reflection and resistance, especially to the “autonomy of the landed gentry” of the era the “organic intellectuals” and NGOs, are also of monarchy, in which “imperial power extended constantly trying to put forward alternative down only to the county level,” nor can they opinions and solutions. The Covid-19 pandemic speak through the electoral system like has sounded the alarm for everyone. It’s gotten American farmers. The space to realize their us stuck in the negative effects of the

Liu Chuanhong, part of Act II, Scene 11 on Yi County, 2014. 601cm x 43cm.đIn the Memoir in Southern Anhui, a visual narrative project including 14 sets of works that made up of 38 pieces of landscapeđand still life oil paintings, and a hundredđfreehand textual sketches including traveling diaries, military maps, attacking plans, arms diagrams, Kung Fu charts, and local social research records. These createđa story about a “bandit leader” character named “Mr. Liu” who journeyed around Japanese-occupied Southern Anhui area between 1940 and 1942. The project was exhibited in the School of Tillers, 2015. 11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST 10/15

Villagers at the School of Tillers forđađfilm screening of artist Liu Chuanhong's work, 2015. Photo: Zhu Rui.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST developmentalism model of modernity, and at towers,” or “walled villages” to form a closed the same time has proven the value of your society to fight against banditry as they did efforts and those of like-minded people. The before. They should welcome more outsiders to publication of your book should be a timely call join as “locals.” The rural society that relied on to action. How can you continue your experiment clan groups, armed self-defense, and yicang in practice? Art and culture are an important part (communal grain storage) to cultivate together of your “experimental field.” How can you and cope with the crises of natural disasters and cultivate some kind of “rural autonomy 11/15 war is gone forever. However, during this aesthetics”? pandemic period, many villages across China đđđđđđđđđđON: The new Covid-19 pandemic has have still wanted to isolate the virus by cutting certainly dealt a heavy blow to the proud off village roads. This may be effective in the achievement of “globalization.” It freezes the short term, but under normal conditions, villages “borderless, barrier-free, and far-reaching” are no longer as self-sufficient and isolated as mobility of human beings. Not only has it they used to be. According to my experience in deprived life and destroyed the economy, but it Bishan, what the villagers eat is not the rice they also urges the reorganization of the global grow, but Northeast rice or Thai rice from the political structure. Here are some of the things market. Therefore, when I say that the village that happened: transnational capital began to should be built as a “place,” this does not refer to flow back or transfer elsewhere; the global traditional “localism” or “protectionism,” but economic supply chain began to “unhook” rather to a site-specific “community” that is voluntarily; the significance of international open and diversified with common memory and organizations and political alliances was put in identity at the same time. Just as Wes Jackson, doubt; the people who left town in haste an American sustainable agriculture eventually wanted to return; the voices of experimenter, said in his 1993 book Becoming nationalism, localism, and protectionism Native to This Place, the village should welcome previously regarded as “conservative and “homecomers” who are not necessarily native to retrograde” had more supporters; and the long- jointly cultivate a new “nativeness.”9 marginalized “anti-globalization” movement đđđđđđđđđđIn a similar way, I regard the agrarianism unexpectedly gained more convincing power. that originated from China’s legendary Shennong Environmentalists were overjoyed that the era and spread to the Asian region as a cherished economic shutdown and travel ban might lead to ideological tradition, but, at the same time, I am a reduction in the overall carbon footprint and a very wary of its evolution into nationalism. The slowdown in global warming. People like me who influence of this tradition became a disaster moved to the countryside almost ten years ago after it was converted into nationalism by Japan were also considered to have “foresight.” before WWII, then further expanded into Pan- đđđđđđđđđđIn fact, I think that after the pandemic Asianism, and was finally absorbed into the subsides, people will remain unwilling or unable ideological framework of the “Greater East Asia to give up the convenience and prosperity of Co-prosperity Sphere,” to become a war theory. I “globalization” and will gradually return to pre- also understand the importance of rural pandemic inertia. However, after this ecological protection, but not in response to calls unprecedented crisis, especially in the case of for anthropocentrism, such as “protecting the possible economic depression, the small, earth for future generations.” Instead, I think this decentralized, low-cost, nature-friendly mutual protection has to stem from the acceptance of aid communities that I have always been keen on land ethics and natural rights. Extreme may become a pragmatic choice for people. For ecologism may also turn into terrorism, while the past two years, I have been living in Jingzhou, environmentalism will continue be absorbed by a small city along the Yangtze River in Hubei the updated capitalist system, because products Province, which is only two hundred kilometers labeled with variations on “environmental from Wuhan, the birthplace of the pandemic. protection” can be sold at higher prices. In terms Jingzhou has a rich history and natural resources of ecological construction, the countryside is to explore, and the cost of living is not high. The faced with the difficult problem of how to release quality of life here is very good, but I no longer e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a its economic potential while protecting its have a chance to continue communitarian ecology. For example, the historical preservation experiments like in Bishan. of villages cannot only rely on incorrigibly đđđđđđđđđđBishan is a traditional agricultural obstinate rules, but must also realistically settlement located in the mountain valley of consider the space of development. southern Anhui, but in my vision, from the years đđđđđđđđđđIn what you call “aesthetics,” Bishan has a when I lived there, it should be an open and very broad space to develop. First of all, its eye- international village. Today’s rural areas no catching Hui-style architectural heritage can be longer rely on “defensive houses,” “fortresses called representative of Chinese vernacular

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A hand-built bamboo tea house “Happiness Pavilion” in construction, January 20, 2016. The project was an architectural cooperative experiment by the villagers, Qian Shi’an, Cheng Guofu, Chu Chunhe, and Ou Ning.đPhoto: Ou Ning.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST architectural art. In the process of activating and expansion. Nowadays, new buildings and these historic buildings over the course of the urban planning almost inevitably have to wrap project, we tried our best to keep their traditional their facades in “green” so that they can be design and appearance, but introduced various successfully promoted in politics and the facilities that conform to modern living market. I recently wrote a statement on the standards, endowed them with more functions topic, titled “Green is Capital.”10 How do you face suitable for practical use, and even adopted the this contradiction when exploring “contemporary minimalist interior style of the traditional 13/15 vernacular”? Japanese house. The materials and furnishings đđđđđđđđđđON: Regarding “green capital,” Xi Jinping used in the renovation process are all taken from has a vivid saying: “Green mountains and clear a second-hand goods market in Yi County, so the water are mountains of gold and silver.”11 This final effect is very “local.” In addition, Huizhou’s has become the golden rule of today’s “Rural rural folk craft tradition is also very rich. It has Revitalization” movement in China. The natural become a source of inspiration for many of the landscape (shanshui) is no longer a secluded artists and designers participating in the Bishan place for the ancient literati, but is now an Project. Slovenian artist Matjaž Tančič used 3D attraction swarmed by contemporary tourists, photography to take portraits of villagers in Yi and a grand carnival setting for holiday County with their hall decorations, showing the consumption. In order to find the next popular relationship between the traces time has on their destination, online video channels send drones bodies and their spiritual space. Liu Chuanhong, to capture the undiscovered wilderness and a Chinese artist, made more than 140 oil isolated villages, and to photograph star- paintings full of local details in a crude style architect-designed homesteads (bed & similar to “peasant paintings.” He divided them breakfasts) in the mountains. Here the eyes into different chapters according to the rural represented by aerial photography are the eyes geography of southern Anhui, and set up a of capital. The rivers and mountains hunted by fictional narrative about a folk ranger traveling drones, and edited by video-makers, are neither through the region. Graphic designers Xiaoma “nature” nor “landscape,” but rather what Guy and Chengzi designed a set of changeable visual Debord called “spectacle.” They are as attractive communication systems for the Bishan Project, as the pinup girls in the shopping center all based on local folk visual materials. In windows. The commentary on these videos addition to engaging these foreign professional describes “spending a night in the mountains” as artists, we published and exhibited villagers’ an emotional act of consumption, which can hand-drawn Bishan landscapes and hand-made contribute to the local economy and engage you bamboo arts, arranged their Yi County Minor and in voluntarily paying more for your room than you Huangmei opera performances, and facilitated would for a five-star hotel in the city in order to their interactions with the foreign artists. In a fulfill your sense of moral satisfaction. word, what we were exploring together was an Investment in B&Bs has become a craze for local aesthetic that could be called “contemporary governments to encourage and for consumers to vernacular.” pay for, while architects describe the đđđđđđđđđđHHR: In your practice, your emphasis on the commissioned building projects in the contemporary nature of “vernacular art” was the countryside with phrases like “rural fundamental motivation to seek this “aesthetic.” reconstruction” and earn sufficient attention on However, deeper changes in daily life and social media. In fact, all of this is the mixed-up conditions were reflected in architectural result of the spillover of real estate capital after projects. For example, the cooperation between it has exhausted urban land reserves, the you and the villagers resulted in a new outbreak of the middle-class “anti-urbanization” contemporary “rural architecture.” Of course, tendency, and the government’s determination to such explorations have evolved elsewhere in solve the problem of rural depression. The recent history too. Some examples are found in countryside suddenly appeared as a “newly” the work of Johan van Lengen of the Intuitive found “virgin land” for capital, but its income has Technology and Bio-Architecture School (TIBÁ), nothing to do with peasants. Peasants may be who wrote the popular book The Barefoot e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a able to work as waiters or sell some local Architect; Samuel Mockbee of the Rural Studio at specialties here and there, but the bulk of the Auburn University; and so on. Not to mention the B&B economy is not for the benefit of the various practices of “green building” all over the peasants. world today. There are also a large number of đđđđđđđđđđThis is why the countryside seems to be full architects who are skilled at turning of surging hot money while the peasants remain “environmental protection” and “back-to-roots” poor. Peter Kropotkin answered a similar mentalities into “politically correct” symbols and question in The Conquest of Bread: Why are there propaganda images for new capital accumulation still large numbers of poor people in a capitalist

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST society with such advanced production directly according to their current situation, and technology and rich social wealth? Because the upload them to Airbnb with our help. We outcomes of workers’ production are not indicated to the guests that there would be no intended for self-sufficiency, but for trading and services provided. When guests stayed in making profits for capitalists.12 If “rural villagers’ homes, they could eat with them and architecture” is regarded as kind of production of experience their most basic aspects of daily life. space, its most fundamental characteristic is I regard these as real B&Bs. The guests enjoyed self-use. For thousands of years, this style of 14/15 them, while the villagers could make income. architecture has followed the life needs of Hui-style houses have many advantages, such as villagers. Like plants growing from soil, these fire-proof horsehead walls, nature-friendly buildings can continuously “grow” new space patios, temperature-regulating hollow brick when family size increases. This is a very walls, moisture-proof interlayer storage spaces, different architecture than identical apartments light-increasing roof windows, reasonable in the city that are “planned” and “designed” to circulation drainage systems, etc., which are all regulate people’s lives. The original meaning of worthwhile features for contemporary architects “bed & breakfast” is to share a spare room with to learn. The local artisans who helped us tourists, but in China it has become part and renovate the old houses are very skilled, so I parcel of hotel investment. Architects are invited liked to cooperate with them on small, to design B&Bs in the countryside, not for self- experimental projects, such as the thatched use by villagers, but for time-based sale to toilet hidden in the inner courtyard and the all- temporary visitors. So even if the buildings bamboo tea pavilion on the mountain. Their conform to the local style and emphasize “green” traditional skills are more than enough to cope and “environmental protection,” they cannot be with these unusual requirements. regarded as “rural architecture” – not to mention đđđđđđđđđđAt the beginning of the environmental those buildings that airdrop urban style into rural movement in the 1960s, tribal dwellings, hand- areas. Rural Studio is a commissioned made houses, and “vernacular architecture” architectural lab, but the users of their design were popular among hippie communes. Lloyd projects are local residents in rural areas and Kahn’s Shelter, edited and published in 1973, there is no problem of “local user absence.” The collected a large number of such examples. It is principle of “folk crafts” is the same. The one of my favorite books. For its part, Airbnb has handicrafts that peasants produce are all brought different styles of traditional dwellings utensils and appliances that they use in their from all over the world into people’s view, and daily life. However, nowadays in China, they are has accelerated the opportunity to experience collected by designers and converted into these living styles in person. At present, expensive luxury goods, which have become architects’ interest in “nonurban” areas and their “artistic crafts” through which the middle class architectural practices in rural areas seem to be can demonstrate the so-called lifestyle choice of developing into a wave of “cosmopolitan “returning to the basics.” vernacular.” Today, the environmental movement đđđđđđđđđđPig’s Inn in Bishan is one of the earliest is getting more and more deeply involved in B&Bs in China. In the early 2000s, the poets Han politics. Of course, it has contributed to the Yu and Zheng Xiaoguang moved to the growth of the Green Party as a political force countryside and renovated old houses that had from the 1970s, which continues to grow all over been abandoned by villagers. Because so many the world and seek political solutions to issues friends wanted to visit, they eventually had to such as anti-capitalism and global warming. accept payment from them. The reason I decided “Green” stands for nature. It was originally the to move to Bishan in the first place was also pursuit of environmentalism, but its rival, related to my first experience in their houses: I capitalism, is also competing for “green.” The fell in love with Hui-style architecture. Later, spectrum of the world is becoming more and after setting up the “School of Tillers” in the more complex. It is really a test of our vision. village (a multiuse space for contemporary đđđđđđđđđđHHR: I think this test of our vision is one of agrarianists), I also used it as a platform to sign the biggest challenges we’re facing today, and up for an account on Airbnb to collect villagers’ e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a also for the future, because it is the starting spare housing resources. We listed these point of self-awakening! resources under the “School of Tillers đđđđđđđđđđ× Researchers in Residence” program and began to accept people from all over the world to stay, with all the income going to the villagers. These villagers didn’t have to invest any money in renovating their houses. Instead, they just needed to clean up their houses, take photos

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST Hou Hanru is the artistic director of the Museo đđđđđđ1 đđđđđđ11 Nazionale delle Arti del XXI Secolo (MAXXI) in Rome. Ou Ning, Utopia in Practice: Xi Jinping’s slogan, in Chinese, Bishan Project and Rural is绿水青山就是金山银山, or đ Reconstruction (Palgrave alternatively两山理论 (two mountain Ou Ning is the director of the documentariesđSan Yuan Macmillan, 2020). theory). It has also been called Liđ(2003) andđMeishi Streetđ(2006); chief curator of the “Xi Jinping Thought on Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of đđđđđđ2 Ecological Civilization.” He first Orange Wang, “China Food mentioned the slogan during a Urbanism\Architectuređ(2009); jury member of 8th Security: Country Faces ‘Grain 2005 tour of Anji County in Benesse Prize at 53rd Venice Biennaleđ(2009); member Supply Gap of 130 Million Tonnes Zhejiang Province, while he was of the Asian Art Council at the Guggenheim by 2025’ as Rural Workforce serving as its Party Committee 15/15 Dwindles,” South China Morning Secretary. See “Green Is Gold: Museumđ(2011); founding chief editor of the literary Post, August 18, 2020 China’s Remarkable Revival journalđChutzpah!(2010-2014); founder of the Bishan https://www.scmp.com/economy Project,” United Nation Projectđ(2011-2016); a visiting professor at Columbia /china-economy/article/30977 Environment Programme, 81/china-food-security-count September 26, 2018 University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, ry-faces-grain-supply-gap-13 0. https://www.unenvironment.or and Preservationđ(2016-2017); and a senior research g/news-and-stories/story/gre fellow of the Center for Arts, Design, and Social đđđđđđ3 en-gold-chinas-remarkable-re Research in Bostonđ(2019-2021). Saneatsu Mushanokōji founded vival-project. the first Atarashiki-mura in Takajo, Miyazaki Prefecture, in đđđđđđ12 1918. It was flooded by the Peter Kropotkin, La Conquête du construction of a reservoir, so it Pain, first published in 1892. In was moved to Moroyama, English: The Conquest of Bread Saitama Prefecture in 1939. The (G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1906), 17. haiku poem on the memorial Available online at the Anarchist pole, in Japanese, Library isこの道より我を生かす道なしこの道を歩く. Seehttps://theanarchistlibrary. The Centenary of Atarashiki- org/library/petr-kropotkin-t he- mura: 1918–2018 (Saneatsu conquest-of-bread#toc4. Mushanokōji Memorial Museum, 2018), 37.

đđđđđđ4 San Yuan Li is a traditional agrarian village located within urban Guangzhou. See also San Yuan Li, directed by Ou Ning and Cao Fei (dGenerate Films, 2003).

đđđđđđ5 James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale University Press, 1998).

đđđđđđ6 Du Tao and Xiao Wei, “Urbanization of Migrant Workers Takes 1.8 Billion Yuan,” The Economic Observer, May 11, 2013 http://finance.sina.com.cn/c hina/20130510/230115425368.s html.

đđđđđđ7 See Erik Reece, Utopia Drive: A Road Trip Through America’s Most Radical Idea (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016); Chris Jennings, Paradise Now: The Story of American Utopianism (Random House, 2016); and Ellen Wayland-Smith, Oneida: From Free Love Utopia to the Well-Set Table (Picador, 2016).

đđđđđđ8 See James Yen’s speech at a reception for Chengdu alumni of the China Institute of Rural Reconstruction (1985), in Complete Works of James Yen, vol. 3, ed. Song Enrong (Tianjin Education Press, 2013), 519. e - f l u x j o r n a # 1 3 — v m b 2 0 đ H d O N i g T e s t o f O u r V i n : A C v a đđđđđđ9 Wes Jackson, Becoming Native to This Place (Counterpoint, 1996), 97.

đđđđđđ10 This is the curatorial statement for a section in the coming exhibition “A Story for the Future” at the MAXXI, Rome. Not published yet.

11.16.20 / 16:03:09 EST