Socially Engaged Art in China: Comparative Study of Cases in Rural and Urban Communities

This study compares two cases: the Qiuzhuang Project in China’s rural areas and the Art Elevator in its urban regions. The analyses encompass the artists’ motivations for initiating the projects, participants’ responses, partners’ and local administrators’ attitudes, social and artistic impacts, and sustainability issues. In both cases, the artists characterized their interventions as artistic actions, with participants receiving the works passively. Partners focused on different aims. Project sustainability was affected by varying levels of support from grassroots administrators. Owing to differing artistic objectives, the projects differed in their emphasis on artistic versus social impact.