Gayuan: Life in the mountains

A return to rural life as a way of heading forward

Hosted by Ye Xu

This project is now archived and was part of DDW21

This project is part of
Master Institute of Visual Cultures Graduates 2021

Silver grass widely grow in the fields

Ye Xu

By telling stories of Gayuan and taking himself as a method, Xu tries to share a methodology of how we can situate ourselves within the Natural shared by other living and non-living beings, observe our complicated and intense connections with them, and reflect on what we are as human beings.

Mapping the 'human ecosystem' of a rural village

Gayuan: Life in the Mountains' is a series of documentary formed by multiple media including photos, videos, illustrations and animations. It presents Xu's experience of growing up in the rural village Gayuan in southeast China, where people still maintain the traditional farming life which had been formed through thousands years of history. Besides knowledge and technique of farming, it’s also about indigenous understanding of the Nature we inhabit and rely on. The ethnographic and ecologic research in Gayuan has become more and more important to Xu, under the fierce comparison with the ongoing development around the village, and all over the country. By narrating it in a personal experience-based way, Xu tries to share a methodology of how we can objectify, problematize and situate ourselves within the Nature shared by other (human/non-human, living/non-living) beings, observe our amazingly pluralistic and intense connections with with the surroundings, reflect on what we are as human beings and hopefully build up a map of 'human ecosystem' after.