When Song and Yang first met via the Internet some years ago, Song was working in Beijing in North China and Yang was living at the other end of the country in Southern China's Guangdong Province. In 2012 they jointly decided to devote their lives to their passion for art. Both quit their jobs in design and advertising and embarked on independent, non-commercial art projects, like the "Apartment of Dreams Come True."

Song and Yang rented the small apartment in the Dongxindian area for three months, from November 2014 till January 2015. During this time, they invited Chinese and foreign artists to live and work in this special environment for the duration of one week each.

"The apartment serves as a work and exhibition space all in one," Song explained. "In the end, all we offer the artists is a simple platform on which to actualize their ideas and get in touch with and interact with this particular location and its surroundings. What will finally come out of it even we don't really know."

The two friends chose Dongxindian as the location for their art project because many people from all parts of China are gathered in this area. "This place has a representative nature for a significant section of Beijing's population. There are many residential areas like Dongxindian in the city outskirts where the percentage of outsiders is very, very high. Many artists also come to the capital from other parts of China," Song said.

Providing an independent and non-commercial room for young contemporary artists is the key concept behind the two Chinese friends' project. This room is a rare good that in the 20-million-inhabitant metropolis of Beijing would be otherwise out of the question. Beijing's young art scene is also confronted with this reality and strongly influenced by it.

German curator Antonie Angerer, 28, has studied art history and Sinology in Germany, speaks fluent Chinese, and supports Song and Yang's project. With her former fellow student, 27-year-old German Anna-Viktoria Eschbach, Angerer herself opened an independent art and exhibition space in Beijing, the "I: Project Space," in August 2014. It is located in a traditional Chinese courtyard in the unadulterated hutong area around Beixinqiao at the heart of the "old Beijing" within the Second Ring Road.

"Our project mainly consists of three parts," Angerer said. "In addition to a non-commercial exhibition space we also organize an ‘artist in residence' program that involves inviting a new artist to stay with us every three months here in the courtyard to work and create in the heart of Beijing's hutong. Apart from that, we maintain a general platform for artistic and cultural exchange through which to organize events such as workshops or artists' talks."

According to Angerer, the "I" in "I: Project Space" represents the three attributes "independent," "international" and the Chinese character 艺(yì) for "art." These three also form the core idea of= the project the two Germans initiated.

Like Song and Yang, Angerer and Eschbach want to give young artists in Beijing a chance to organize exhibitions exclusive of the pressure of the art market and to realize their own projects. In comparison to Europe, China offers far less scope for artists to apply for financial support, Angerer said. "Although Beijing today has quite a diverse art scene, non-commercial exhibition spaces are still hard to find. Most of the artistic exhibitions are overtly sales-oriented."

Nowadays, exchange platforms such as independent art spaces or resident programs can be found in more and more places throughout the world. Berlin alone, for example, contains more than 150 non-commercial art spaces, Angerer said. Beijing and other Chinese cities, however, still lack such opportunities.

"I think the support of non-commercial exhibition spaces or resident programs is crucial, especially for young artists. It's mainly they that must juggle opportunities to creat their art with financing it in order to realize their ideas. During the three months an artist stays here with us at ‘I: Project Space" he or she can fully concentrate on his or her work and the creative process." And there is in China great interest in projects like this, not only on the part of Chinese artists, but also of foreigners.

Both projects, "I: Project Space" and the "Apartment of Dreams Come True," bring artists directly to the midst of the organic, everyday living environment of Chinese people. Moreover, what the projects have in common is that they want both the art and the artist to be part of the lives of the people, and vice-versa. That is why they chose a location in the heart of the city rather than in famous art zones like 798, Heiqiao or Caochangdi. "Art needs to witness the exchange between society and the city, this is a central meaning of art as such," Angerer said.