Artist Xu Bing displays in Beijing his multimedia installation featuring a utopian world inspired by the Chinese fable, Peach Blossom Spring. [Photo provided to China Daily] |
In the fable, the fisherman who finds the wonderland by accident, can't go back to it again after he returns to his village.
Expanding on his work, Xu says: "Men seem to be on an endless pursuit of such a wonderland in their minds. But the reality is that we are far from our dreams."
The installation, which was created for the Victoria and Albert Museum's large-scale Chinese painting exhibition in 2013, gave Xu the chance to bring Chinese landscape paintings to life using stones and ceramics.
Stone mountains and ceramic houses, animals and humans are not as vivid as real ones. Hence the artist wanted to create a two-and-a-half dimensional effect to remind people that utopia does not exist.
In 2014, the installation moved to Chatsworth Garden, a house built in the 15th century in Derbyshire in England.
Xu says he loves the contrast between his work and the environment where it was displayed in Britain.
Artist Xu Bing displays in Beijing his multimedia installation featuring a utopian world inspired by the Chinese fable, Peach Blossom Spring. [Photo provided to China Daily] |