ABSTRACT
This chapter traces the work of Zuo Jing, an independent and itinerant curator who has charged himself with the mission of reviving traditional architecture, folk arts, and cultural life in the countryside through what he later theorizes as a trilogy of rural reconstruction: space production, product production, and culture production. From the Bishan Project that he co-launched in 2011 to the ongoing Maogong Project and Jingmai Mountain Project, Zuo has collaborated with many professionals of various backgrounds to stimulate the growth of public art and life in rural areas through conservation projects, workshops, exhibitions, and festivals, among others. In relation to the widening gap between the rural and the urban, the chapter argues that Zuo’s undertaking carries on the legacy of Chinese intellectual activism and is a form of alternative place-making.
