Paper short abstract:

This paper explores how art reshapes rural landscapes and communities through "Art at Fuliang". Focusing on art’s spatial and temporal mobility, it examines how installations in transitional rural spaces engage locals in their everyday practices and contribute to (re)constructing a sense of place.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the mobility of art materials and their affective resonances in rural China, focusing on "Art at Fuliang", an ongoing regional art festival in a village in Southern China. This event involves contemporary artworks installed in disused houses and farmlands, which are marked by traces of industrialisation and migration as dynamic sites of transition. Artworks in these rural spaces are mobile not only in space, travelling from urban centres to rural settings, but also in time, evolving with the seasons, weather, and local conditions. As the exhibition progresses, the art becomes integral to the local landscape, transforming both the spaces and the people who encounter them while turning the village into 'a roofless art museum'.

Drawing from long-term ethnographic fieldwork in the village, I examine three key examples: a large-scale outdoor sculpture on a tea mountain that gradually becomes a local landmark, a series of water tank installations that improve local homes' water storage systems, and a multimedia assemblage in an old house that reflects the village's migration history. These artworks engage both locals and visitors, becoming catalysts for collective reflection on the past while embedding themselves in the community's construction of their present and future. I argue that the affective dimensions of art are shaped not only by their materials, but by the relationship between these materials and the rural contexts they occupy. The mobility of art—both spatial and temporal—expands the fabric of affects as it becomes integrated into the everyday life of the village.