| In November 2005, Beijing Film Studio was rented for around a month and some new works including Home (170 x 300 cm) and Poisonous Spider (170 x 210 cm) as well as panoramic images such as Yaochi Fiesta and Dream of Migrants were created. A demolished home and a poisonous web made out of barbed wires were set up here. These two works, like the previous Battle Series, were also intrigued by artist Wang Qing-Song’s childhood memories. Home comes from his earlier memories of whether there are treasures hidden in an old house. Intentionally a lot of garbage, including daily waste, electrical trash, and chemicals, were piled into the walls. Now people still don’t know if demolished houses can be excavated to find treasures. | 
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Valerie Zhang
Wang Qing-Song, Dormitory, 2005. C-print, 170 x 400 cm. Courtesy of the artist
In November 2005, Beijing Film Studio was rented for around a month and some new works including Home (170 x 300 cm) and Poisonous Spider (170 x 210 cm) as well as panoramic images such as Yaochi Fiesta and Dream of Migrants were created. A demolished home and a poisonous web made out of barbed wires were set up here. These two works, like the previous Battle Series, were also intrigued by artist Wang Qing-Song’s childhood memories. Home comes from his earlier memories of whether there are treasures hidden in an old house. Intentionally a lot of garbage, including daily waste, electrical trash, and chemicals, were piled into the walls. Now people still don’t know if demolished houses can be excavated to find treasures. Spiders made out of barbed wires hint at danger and attraction. The barbed-wire web can attract and trap a lot of worms and insects for spiders’ food. Nowadays in this commercial world, everyone is like a spider that feeds itself with a variety of daily used stuff and some garbage like what the artist collected over the last several months.
Dream of Migrants seems to show us a derogatory China, where aimlessly drifting population move from one place to another, mostly from countryside to big cities to look for jobs. This group of people is called unauthorized flow of population. They are referred to as elements of social instability. They have a special identity and are marked with demean features as dirty, unstable, and dangerous. In Beijing, there are nearly three million such people. They all have dreams and look for opportunities when they flee their hometown to big cities. They are helpful in urban development, but also bring instability. Their children have no formal education, and the families have no stable housing. They used to be driven here and there due to lack of money and honor. Many people view them as a vibrant force but most people regard them as social viruses. The derogatory terms associated with them are tramp, loafers, gangsters, rascals, and so on.
Wang explained the purpose to make this show as he was sympathetic to this particular group of people. They hold onto their dreams and like to be recognized in the city and fulfill their goals. But their dream is hard to realize. In 1993, Wang came to Beijing from Jinzhou, Hubei Province. Jinzhou is a very small city. He had a dream, too. He was surprised to see the huge city with a population 100 times more than that of his hometown, and the dramatic social changes in an urban city. But he sustained long enough to be recognized as an artist. That’s why he sympathizes with so many people who come to this city for similar ideals.
In another work Dormitory, the pursuit for dream and opportunities in a big city was further expressed. In Beijing Movie Studio he built up a three-story building. At first glance, this building is like a Chinese-style building. Upon a closer look, one finds that it combines the features of the former Soviet Union architecture as well as European architecture, in addition to the traditional Chinese house. The old brilliance and potential danger of this combined architecture is visible at first sight. The dirty moist land was dug in front of the building to imply the hardship of living in a city and of fulfilling one’s dream. Wang toned down the colors to create a very gloomy scenario. The general atmosphere of this work aims to achieve a mixture of floating population and their dreams, which are in constant conflict with reality. One can see from the different parts of this photograph the varieties of unsettled feelings: being beaten around, shabby housing, and dirty environment.
Editorial note: This is an excerpt from the original article.
