My name is Deng Chunru, 44 years old
People call me “Village Chief”
Our New-Who Old Village
Located on the northern edge of Shenzhen, right next to Dongguan
There are about a hundred artists living in our village
Villagers and artists live next door
We are all neighbors
I was born in this village
I am the only (indigenous) painter in the village
I graduated from college in 2001 and came back to work in Shenzhen
There are more than 100 Hakka townhouses in the village
Most of them were built at the end of the Qing Dynasty
The villagers rented the old houses to some scrap collectors
Even to some illegal workshops
And the Qiming School was in even worse condition
It hurt me to even look at these dilapidated houses
They should have been put to better use
So I decided to invite my friends over to start their studios
It sounded impossible
Inviting artists to shabby, remote village
I rented the school with a bunch of friends
And converted it into a studio
We pooled together five, six hundred thousand yuan
Art+canteen is a work of artist Sun Li and me
It was used for scrap collection before
We rented it and converted it into a place for meetups
By the time of 2013
We had twenty to thirty artists joined us
The rent of a courtyard was seven to eight hundred
Since a group of artists have settled here
The situation in the village also started to change
The old village committee office building
Later became the New Who Art Museum
前几年,我们做一个展览叫“粘贴公共” A few years before we curated an exhibition – “Paste Public”
Moved the old furniture and other old stuff of some residents
To the New Who Art Museum
And invited artists too
Place their works and the old stuff side by side
Quite a few residents came to the exhibition
A lot of their old memories were awaken
The steamed rice roll shop held a photography exhibition
Related to the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone borders
We also invited great photographers to take pictures of migrate workers
And made them covers of People Weekly
They were happy to see it
Some children in the village
Who have been in my public education activities
Developed an interest in art as a future career
All we wanted to do was to present aesthetic enjoyment
At least to open a window
Many artists have lived here for seven, eight years
They got married here and had children here
The oldest artist in our village is in his sixties
And the youngest one was born after 1995
A friend described him as a squire of our time
He has helped many artists’ children on the problem of enrollment
And social security
Gradually other villagers started go to him for help
When streetlights didn’t work
When there was a thief
They’d call Chunru first and then the police
He’d do his best to help others
I didn’t think much about it when I first started
I just wanted to do something for the village
There are other old villages nearby
They were torn down these years
Artists living here
Spend time and energy maintaining the houses
So that the old houses could survive
I want the art village to slow down
Artists found their own workshops
Do what they want to do
The most important thing is that they come here to live a life