The concept of entangled landscapes deals with the intersection of history,
politics, utopian visions, and landscape aesthetics.
To make China’s villages modern and prosperous
was of central concern to generations of modernizers in China.
Their visions of the future differed considerably, however.
In this video, we will look at different phases of
rural reconstruction, from early modernity up to the 1950s to the 70s,
when Mao Zedong put his revolutionary vision of land reform into practice.
The second video of this lesson will introduce
the diversity of post-revolutionary models of village reconstruction.
Chinese peasants were not always poor,
as this painting of well-nourished rice farmers dating from the mid-14th century
or even earlier illustrates.
Since the late imperial times, however,
the countryside became more and more destitute.
The link between building a modern nation from
the ruins of the fallen Chinese empire by bringing
prosperity to the countryside was formed as one of the core concerns of early reformers.
There was broad consensus
that peasants should be led out of poverty based on education, institutional support,
economic investments, and a new social order that could
secure a harmonious coexistence among the different social segments of the nation.
The idea was picked up from Japanese models
during the early years of the 20th century.
A group of reform-oriented intellectuals from China
who were sent to study in Japan got acquainted with
the New Village project of the philosopher Mushanokōji Saneatsu.
Mushanokōji had been inspired by Western utopian humanism,
the socialist ideals of freedom and equality,
and Lew Tolstoy’s exemplary restructuring project on his own estate in Russia.
In late 1918, he initiated his New Village community in Japan.
This New Village, Atarashiki Mura in Japanese, was
designed to bring together artists and peasants in a social experiment.
Food, money, and education were to be shared equally
and as common goods among the group members.
Mushanokōji hoped that the community would attract international visitors, which it did.
Its founder’s utopian dream that
Atarashiki Mura would be emulated in large numbers worldwide
and that the New Village Movement could render wars and class structures obsolete
did not fully materialize, however.
Yet, the village is well and alive in Japan, after having been relocated in 1939.
But it must also be conceded
that from its very beginnings,
Japanese reactions were much less enthusiastic than the Chinese visitors’ responses.
Following the Japanese example,
reform intellectuals established several New Villages in China.
From then on, the spirit of
experimental village reconstruction can be observed throughout the 20th century.
The Chinese emulation of Atarashiki Mura quickly
developed into a movement with hundreds of new villages,
as well as educational, developmental, and health projects
to modernize the countryside in a sustainable way.
Built upon ideas that were published by Mushanokōji and Chinese reform intellectuals,
the concept evolved into the rural reconstruction movement
launched by Christian educator and philanthropist James Y.C. Yen,
the philosopher Liang Shuming,
and others during the 1920s.
The movement went through several phases of ruptures,
reorientation and growth, and is currently active in various institutional contexts.
The largest of these institutions is
the International Institute of Rural Reconstruction that Yen founded in 1950.
Its headquarters are in the Philippines,
another branch continued in Taiwan,
and a third was reanimated in Mainland China in the 1980s.
The latter inspired the foundation of
the James Yen Institute for Rural Reconstruction in Dingzhou
as recently as 2003,
which became the headquarter of China’s New Rural Reconstruction Movement.
In-between these intellectual initiatives,
Mao Zedong enacted his vision of a revolutionary transformation of the countryside.
The Maoist land reforms were based on the expropriation of rich landlords
and the consolidation of many small farms in large agriculture commune structures.
Barefoot doctors and midwives stepped in to
replace the traditional medical and religious authorities,
and industrial plants, intended to spur the local economic development,
completed the new landscapes of Mao’s revolution.
On this revolutionary propaganda poster
you see an oil refinery.
The inscription reads: “On the banks of the Yangzi River, Daqing blooms.”
The design style is a fusion of the aesthetic principles of socialist realism
and traditional shanshui landscape painting.
Communes were the core of Mao’s rural utopia.
This poster, designed for schools in 1958,
shows how they were imagined.
We see agricultural industrial production sites,
modern roads with traffic,
communal buildings, and the people’s militia
all united harmoniously in an affluent village.
The revolutionary way of life was to produce wealth and happiness for everyone.
Even the pigs were supposed to be happier
and would grow fatter in this new society.
The peasants were moreover taught to read and write,
trained in Mao Zedong thought,
and entertained with cultural performances that aimed at anchoring
the socialist doctrines in the hearts and minds of the nation’s population.
Many propaganda posters showed Mao surrounded by
happy, carefree villagers on occasion of his visits to the countryside.
The reality behind the brave new world of the propaganda posters was very different.
Landlords were expropriated, paraded as criminals through the streets, and even executed.
Moreover, the exorbitant expectations of
the political centre concerning the country’s capacity for economic growth
brought about a man-made famine of
unprecedented gravity during the Grat Leap Forward in the years between 1959 and 1961,
and a first wave of serious environmental degradation
due to large-scale unsustainable farming,
deforestation, and industrial pollution.
On our picture, women peel the bark from a tree trunk,
which in many places was the only available food substitute.
This image stems from the 1942 Henan famine,
which yielded a death toll of one to three million people.
The situation was much worse during the Great Leap Forward famine,
when between 15 to 45 million people died from starvation.
Mao had announced that a ‘war against nature’ should
forcibly extract better harvests and resources from the land.
What resulted from the campaigns
was the beginning of an environmental crisis that became
increasingly serious during the post-revolutionary economic opening and boom.
Although people were entitled and actually encouraged to destroy cultural heritage
symbolizing the old society
in this earlier period,
the damage was insignificant as compared to
the devastation brought about by private investors during the reform era.
The same holds true for deforestation and pollution:
environments came under more pressure since the beginning of the economic miracle.
After the euphoria of the 1980s,
more and more people were disillusioned with the capitalist excesses in the country.
Intellectuals worried about uncontrollable development of cities and villages,
and bemoaned the disappearing landscapes.
Middle class activism grew in urban contexts,
and even peasants began to be aware of, and protest against polluting industries.
This is the gloomy side of the picture.
At the same time, Taoist,
Buddhist, and Christian associations
were newly founded or returned to the former village headquarters.
While traditional humanitarian institutions
came to resume their welfare and religious activities,
artists and modern recluses began to flock
to the countryside in search for a better life, too,
and in many places are ready to resume the spirit of the early modern social experiments.
Many of them are attracted by the peaceful, unhurried way of life,
and seek the harmonizing spirit of traditional Chinese culture.
This image from Luc Schaedler’s movie “Watermarks.
Three Letters from China”,
which was released in 2013,
shows the disappearing spirit of frugality,
which nourishes rather than pillages landscapes.
In the film, three different visions of China’s rural problems were
merged with alluring views of its beautiful rural landscapes,
which to a great extent are the result of
small-scale farming that the contemporary government considers outdated.
When President Xi Jinping in late 2014 announced
his decision to resume Mao’s policy of rusticating intellectuals,
he thought about short-term outings
to make them understand life in the hinterlands
and bring their aesthetic pursuits in accordance with
the desires and expectations of the rural grassroots.
At that time, several art and eco-villages were already flourishing.
One example is multimedia artist and filmographer
Ou Ning’s experiment at Bishan village in Anhui province.
He and his family came to live there permanently.
They renovated some of the old buildings,
founded a bookstore, and established the Bishan Harvestical,
a yearly festival where artists and peasants
joined forces to trade manufactured artifacts,
artworks, and rural products.
Meanwhile, Ou Ning has moved to New York,
but other reconstruction experiments continue,
which will be the topic
of our next video.