| Spring Outing is a group project carried out by 12 young artists based in Hangzhou, China. They are: Deng Ji-Yun, Gu Xian-Ye, Hao Xing, Hong Wei, Jin Ya-Nan, Li Wen-Qiang, Lu Yi, Wang Ke-Wei, Xu Shi-Jun, Zhang Wei, Zhang Yi-Shen, and Zhou Ming. The idea for the project came from a game called Big Millionaire. The purpose of the project was to get all the participating artists involved in the game to interact. The project began with a game on a self-made chessboard. Seventy-two art projects contributed by 12 artists were placed on the chessboard. |  |
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Spring Outing is a group project carried out by 12 young artists based in Hangzhou, China. They are: Deng Ji-Yun, Gu Xian-Ye, Hao Xing, Hong Wei, Jin Ya-Nan, Li Wen-Qiang, Lu Yi, Wang Ke-Wei, Xu Shi-Jun, Zhang Wei, Zhang Yi-Shen, and Zhou Ming.
The idea for the project came from a game called Big Millionaire. The purpose of the project was to get all the participating artists involved in the game to interact. The project began with a game on a self-made chessboard. Seventy-two art projects contributed by 12 artists were placed on the chessboard. By tossing the dice, the artists got to carry out the projects one after another. It was a game as much as an experience of living through various situations day by day in real life. The final result of the project is a photography and video documentation of the games. In the process, everyone was the actor as well as the director and the guest. Individualism was erased during the process. The whole project is a product filtered by collective awareness.
The idea of using Hangzhou as the backdrop for this project reflected that Hangzhou, as a city, is characterized by history and spirit. The roads and streets of the city live on. Individuals keep on adding new elements to the city. The city itself gives birth to history and emotions. It also nurtures certain idealism and spirit. The boundaries nowadays between mainstream ideology and marginal culture have become indistinct. Entertainment, consumption, and the Internet are magically re-structuring our society and culture. Modernization is an integrated entirety, but it is not a perfect one. It comes also with tension, pressure, chaos, and disturbance. The Spring Outing project witnessed a unique game, revealing the internal sense of alienation of those who seemingly are living la dolce vita. All 12 participants indulged themselves in a role-playing rehearsal—sentimental, confused, and mischievous—questioning their own existence and acting out self-rebellion, while trying to resist the sense of loss and get away.
