Summary: The Long March Project is back on the road. May 2006, the Long March team will travel to the northwestern Chinese city of Yan’an with ten leading artists including Cai Guo-Qiang, Sui Jianguo, Qiu Zhijie as well as curators, and scholars, creating projects, dialogue and communication with the local community.

Initiated in 1999, carried out along the route of the historical Long March in 2002, and marching today, the Long March is a multifaceted art and social project that continually revisit different contexts, historical and geographical locations, crossing borders and limitations of cultural forms through visual display. Its purpose is to construct a meaningful relationship in between the local and international, urban and rural, and theory and practice. The Long March, like the journey itself, is continually developing. International and local sites function not just as platforms for exhibition, but as initiators of dialogue. Through the participation of local and international participants, the Long March explores local contexts, examining the relationship between art and society to determine new possibilities and experiences for art.
Yan’an is the last site of the 6000 mile historical Long March route. It is a revolutionary site of the Chinese Communist Party, and a laboratory for the construction of an ideal society and utopia. It is also the starting point for the new Long March. In May 2006, the Long March Project will revisit Yan’an, examining the effects of globalization on Chinese cultural development through a dialogue between history and the present. Through research and discussion of the collective socialist memory, the Long Marchers and artists throughout China will travel to Yan’an to engage with rural experiences, general social mobilization, visual economy and sustainable society, and the construction of a visual subjectivity. Programming includes:

1. Exhibition of works from the Yan’an Revolutionary period based upon local folk cultural tradition, such as by artists such as Gu Yuan

2. Revisiting Yanchuan County – a followup to the Long March Project – the Great Survey of Papercuttings in Yanchuan County (2004). The project will ascertain the impact of the survey on the local ecology of Yanchuan County papercuttings, as well as initiate a dialogue for the establishment of a papercutting/folk art based art education curriculum and art teacher training program for primary schools in Yanchuan

3. Leading artist projects in a variety of medium including painting, sculpture, installation, video and archival. Participating artists include Sui Jianguo, Qiu Zhijie, Yan Lei, Hong Hao, Wang Wei, Wang Shugang, Xiao Xiong, Yue Luping, He Jinwei, Zhu Jiuyang, Jennifer Ma Wen and others.

4. Cai Guo-Qiang’s collaboration with the Long March Project. On May 20, the “Yan’an Forum on Art Education” initiated by artist Cai Guo-Qiang and organized by the Long March Project will be launched. With the rapid economic development in China and China’s entry into the international markets, contemporary Chinese art has gone from the underground position of intervening in society and advocating more freedom and openness through semi-underground activities, to gaining international and locale acceptance as apparent in its emergence in art biennales and museums, and an increasingly active global and local art market. However, what has become most vital to the future of contemporary Chinese art, as well as for the future development of Chinese culture, is the issue of art education, as well as issues circulating throughout the entire pedagogical system. At the same time, the art education revolution also initiates an examination of the close relationship between international contexts and local realities within international contemporary art. On the 64th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s “Yan’an Forum on Arts and Literature”, a discussion about the situation of contemporary art education will be held. Invited participants include leading art educators from art academies, education officials, directors of education from museum and contemporary art organizations, artists, scholars, critics, and curators who have been engaged with the issue of education, as well as media representatives from throughout China and local Yan’an art educators and students.

5. Long March Project “Site Inspection” – 20 leading artists will be selected from throughout China. This group will “inspect” the various “sites” in Yan’an where they will realize projects before September 30, 2006. At the same time, the group will “monitor and observe” the proceedings of the “Yan’an Forum on Arts Education.”

For more information please contact:
Long March Space
Mailbox 8503, Beijing, China 100015
+86 (0)10 6438 7107 Tel/fax
lm@longmarchspace.com www.longmarchspace.com