BY THE RUINS
This is a documentary about the first freelance artists in Beijing. They gathered in a village near the Yuan Ming Yuan ruins. This documentary briefly tells the story of them, about their life, their works and their choices.
This is a documentary about the first freelance artists in Beijing. They gathered in a village near the Yuan Ming Yuan ruins. This documentary briefly tells the story of them, about their life, their works and their choices.
Yuan Ming Yuan, located in Haidian District, Beijing, was a large royal garden during the Qing Dynasty. It was sacked and destroyed by the British and French troops during the Second Opium War in 1880, and then destroyed again during the Cultural Revolution in the 1970s, only the ruins remain.
In the 80s, some art students who graduated from Beijing's Art Academies voluntarily gave up their assigned jobs and lived sporadically and temporarily in the area around Yuan Ming Yuan, becoming the first freelance artists in Beijing.
In 1950's China, artists had an official profession and were included in a system where they were supported by the government. Artists received a salary, were reimbursed for creative and medical expenses, etc., and waited for the allocation of a residence until they retired. Beginning in the 1980s, a number of artists left their official positions to create more freely. All over the country, there was a group of young artists who sold paintings for a living and wandered freely, in order to pursue their artistic ideals and escape from the shackles of the system. This group of people chose to live in the Village near the yuanmingyuan ruins, thus forming the "Yuanmingyuan Artists' Village", where three to four hundred artists gathered at its peak.
As a person who quite often feels exterior, the identity of being a Beijinger is the one that always makes me feel belonged to. I was born and raised in Beijing. And to be honest, I didn't have a concept of the city of Beijing until I left Beijing. In the past, I did not know what Beijing means to me, I was just saying that I come from Beijing and I love my city.
Then, I left Beijing for college. That was the time I found myself having some attachment to my city. I often miss my home, not only my family, but on a much larger scale, more unspoken and untouchable, I thought I miss the sense of Beijing. I started to find as much as Beijing as I can, I read novels about Beijing, watching films of Beijing stories and listening to Beijing musicians songs. One day, when I tried to trace Beijing again, I found a book called The Last Romance in the 20 Century: The life of a freelance artist in Beijing. That was the first time I met the Yuan Ming Yuan artist.
I was so fascinated by their stories. What they did at that time brought so much to the present arts and cultures in China. How they struggle with poverty to fight with the system for freedom to create. I think this is crucial for me to find the sense of Beijing. Thus, I decided to make a documentary about it. I want more people to feel it.
One thing before I started producing is, I asked myself a question: what is my position in the story? This question can be traced back to a question in the book Introduction to Documentary: to whom does the story of a documentary belong? Does it belong to the director or to the subject of the documentary? I think this is an important question to ask for every director before they make a film, especially the documentaries. It helps us to think about what is the best way to tell a story to respect the story.
For me, I don’t think I own the story, as a storyteller. I encountered the story in a book as well as my father’s telling(My father knows some of the artists). I was a humble listener, I discovered the story, not invent it. So, when I tell the story, I want to be invisible. It’s not because I was afraid to have emotions or attitudes toward it, but I feel I was not appropriate to do it. I do not think I could be the person to say things like “They are so great, all of the people should remember them” or “The authorities are so bad, we should hate them”. What I want to do is just tell the story, and the audience could make their own minds. That's the reason I tried to keep everything peaceful and slow. I want to use the story itself to touch people, not directly telling emotions you should have.
Ruins always have a tangled relationship with arts and artists, symbolic, metaphorical, and aesthetic, and so are the Yuanmingyuan Ruins with Yuanmingyuan artists. Yuanmingyuan was once a masterpiece of ancient Chinese architecture and a landscape garden but was destroyed during the war. Thus, only the ruins remain. And the first generation of freelance artists in China forms a village near the ruin, and their destiny was similar to the Yuanmingyuan, being dismissed. Thus, I reckon By the Ruin is the perfect name for this story, the artists, gathered around the ruin as if they made the ruins revive, but they fall just like the ruin. It was sorrowful but beautiful.
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章德音 作品 ｜ A Film by MIA
Voiceover
赵佳时 ZHAO JIASHI
Appearance
牟森 MOU SEN
张大力 ZHANG DALI
高波 GAO BO
徐冰 XU BING
方力钧 FANG LIJUN
Footage
吴文光 WU WENGUANG
赵亮 ZHAO LIANG
Photo
徐志伟 XU ZHIWEI
2022 Winter in NYC