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Fable inspires utopian world

Updated: 2016-06-07 07:10:07

( China Daily )

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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]

Artist Xu Bing's multi-media installation of a utopian world-inspired by an ancient Chinese fable-is on display for the first time in China.

The circular installation, which was earlier exhibited in London's Victoria and Albert Museum and in Chatsworth House in England, comprises nine landscapes made up of stones, plants and ceramics.

Each landscape represents a different part of China.

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]

For instance, black stones and red plum flowers represent the northern part of China, while white stones, bamboo and pavilions represent South China's landscapes.

The stones are from five provinces and the ceramics are from Jiangxi province's Jingdezhen, which is nicknamed China's "capital of ceramics".

The installation is inspired by the Chinese fable, Peach Blossom Spring, written by poet Tao Yuanming (AD 365-427), who depicts an ideal world where man and nature live in harmony.

Xu Bing, 61, who acknowledges that the name of the work, The Dream of Traveling to The Wonderland Must Be Realized, is contradictory, justifies the title, saying: "The tension between nature and man is increasing. We often complain about our lives in the modern world as well as the environment we inhabit. We always dream about living in a wonderland, but the fact is that this dream will never come true."

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