Flower Tree Village 花树村

Year of production 年代: 2006
Running Time 时长: 20:20 min
Color 彩色 / Sound 有声

This video work was filmed in the summer of 2006, and records some incidents in my hometown "Flower Tree Village" which occurred during that period. In 2005, the village was involved in the "New Rural Construction Movement," and in order to make the village look more proper, all the kitchens were torn down by the township government. Because most of the kitchens which were attached to the main building were built from the 1950s to the 1970s, the residents had no deeds or property certificates, and the kitchens were regarded as be illegal. The villagers had no place to cook, so some of families built new kitchens in the same place. In the summer of 2006, the higher-level officers wanted to inspect the results of the "movement," so the township government demolished the kitchens again, and decorated the ancestral hall and along with other public works.
During this time, I asked some young people to plant two rows of pine trees without roots in the middle of the river and to make it look like a road with a strong sense of perspective, and after that I organized a performance in the river. The background of to this absurd performance is the construction of a hydropower station upriver, which will eventually influence and divert the river's path. The view of the river as it seen in the video will disappear after the construction of the hydropower station and will, due to the lack of water, transform itself into a sort of road. The action of planting trees finds its echo in the video's documentary of the "New Rural Construction Movement."
Chinese government around 2005.

 

录像拍摄于2006年夏, 记录了我的家乡花树村在期间发生的一些事。2005年, 这个村子成为了 "新农村建设运动" 的重点改造对象, 为了整治村内环境, 政府对于村里所有的厨房进行了拆除, 因为大部分家庭的厨房都是建于50-70年代的附属于主建筑的小型建筑, 没有房产证, 所以被认定为非法。这直接导致了很多的居民没有做饭的地方, 所以很多家庭又在原址上建起了新的厨房。2006年夏, 由于面临上级的建设成果大检查, 村子又一次进行了大改造, 主要包括拆毁重建的厨房, 以及装修祠堂等方面的工作。
同时, 我安排了村里的人在河的中央种了两排杉树, 制造了一种类似马路的风景, 并在这片风景中进行了表演。这个行动的背景是因为河流的上游正在建一个发电站, 电站建好之后, 河流改道, 经过村里的这一段河流将彻底干枯。