Person
Artist
Jin Le
靳勒
Date of birth
1966
Date of death
2021
Place Of birth
Tianshui, Gansu, China
Biography
Jin Le strives to engage his fellow villagers from the remote rural village Shijiezi in light of the growing desire among the contemporary Chinese art circles to seek alternative spaces for artistic production and to make art relevant to community development. Increasingly stricken by the gap between metropolises such as Beijing where he was based, and the countryside such as Shijiezi where he grew up, Jin left Beijing in 2005 and has since endeavoured to introduce art as a stimulus for changes to his poverty-stricken home village in both materialistic and cultural terms. His work includes making site-specific sculpture and installation works to enrich the public space in the village, taking villagers to participate in art-related events in the cities, inviting artists and other professionals to visit and interact with villagers, initiating projects for collaborations between art professionals and villagers, and facilitating the implementation of these collaborations, among others. Jin’s election to be the village head in 2008 by the villagers and their agreement to offer their private homes as ready-made exhibiting spaces so Shijiezi Museum could be found in 2009 testify to the success of Jin’s socially engaged art practice. Building upon local support, Jin and his collaborator Qin Ga, a Beijing-based artist, launched the ambitious Fly Together: Shijiezi Village Art Practice Project in 2015.
