Yang Xiaodong photography

In June, 2006, Yang Xiaodong and his younger brother drove through Yangshuo and passed the former site of the local sugar factory. Somehow, he remembered the scene in tarkovsky's film Homesickness, and his mind moved, tearing down the old factory and transforming it into a famous sugar house.

In June, 2020, Dai Jinhua, a professor from Peking University, came to the candy house to teach Tarkovsky's Homesickness. The lecture entitled "Poetic Image Line" attracted many listeners from all over the world, including Zhou Rong, a professor at the School of Architecture of Tsinghua University, Li Honggu, editor-in-chief of Sanlian Life Weekly, Ou Ning, curator, film producer, cellist and folk musician & valley resident, radio host, architect Dong Gong and architect Guo Liaohui.

Dai Jinhua's lecture is part of the Sugar House's two-month "Sugar Fire Art Festival". From June 365438+1October 3 1 in 2020, a variety of cultural activities were held here, from lectures, photo exhibitions, back-shaking performances, folk songs nights to mountain stereo projection art exhibitions, until June 365438+February 3 1, which ushered in the climax of New Year's Eve-burning fire.

After half a century of wind and rain, this old sugar factory of 1969 has been transformed into the most popular art space in Yangshuo.

Tangshe

How is the sugar house made?

In Yangshuo, Guilin, Guangxi, there used to be a sugar factory that was a smash hit, facing the Lijiang River and surrounded by mountains.

The sugar factory covers an area of 30,000 square meters and was put into operation on 1969, with a daily output of more than 200 tons. More than 200 workers in the factory work in three shifts every day, and there is a lot of traffic around the sugar factory.

At that time, sugar was a tight commodity planned to supply, a favorite of children and a supplement for pregnant women. As a pioneer and model of socialist construction, sugar factory has always made Yangshuo people proud.

In the past 30 years, the national economy has taken off and imported goods have poured out, and the ancient squeezing method of sugar factories has not adapted to the needs of the times. From 65438 to 0998, the government stopped the large-scale operation of sugar factories to protect local water resources.

refinery

The sugar factory has withdrawn from the historical stage, but the story continues.

Yang Xiaodong and the sugar factory met in 2006. When my brother and I passed the sugar factory by car, they saw a big chimney in the distance, driving straight to the Lijiang River and stopping in front of the old truss. "It happened to rain that day. I looked back and saw the reflection of an old building in the water. I was shocked."

This scene reminds Yang Xiao Eastern Union of the last scene in tarkovsky's film Nostalgia: the protagonist is sitting in an abandoned Gothic church in Italy, with a pool of lake in front of him, reflecting Russia's hometown, and his mother, wife and children are coming face to face.

When I first saw the film, Yang Xiaodong was shocked by the picture and even stopped for a few minutes. Later, he went to Siena, Tuscany, Italy to look for the church in the movie.

"It was the sugar factory that chose us." Yang Xiaodong is a hotel enthusiast. At that time, he found that the sugar factory had the conditions to become a good hotel and decided to buy it. At that time, many factories along the Lijiang River were waiting to be demolished. Thanks to the efforts of Yang Xiaodong and others, the sugar factory was saved because of its unique architectural style and magnificent surrounding landscape.

Old building

In 2007, Zhao Chongxin, a designer who once renovated the old factory building in Shanghai 1933, came to the sugar factory and began to repair the old buildings that were on the verge of collapse and disappeared, carving this huge artwork like a craftsman.

From the pump room, truss and chimney to the press workshop, large boiler room, small boiler room and refining workshop, the production process of the sugar factory has been completely preserved and transformed into a brand-new space. From "missing the motherland and looking at the world" to "working hard and building the country diligently", the slogan engraved with the imprint of the times on the outer wall of the sugar factory has always remained the same.

"Folk industrial buildings are so beautiful! We keep the old buildings, which is actually more expensive and takes longer than building new buildings. " The restoration of this old building lasted for eight years. Yang Xiaodong remembers that when repairing the roof, because they were inexperienced, they purchased a batch of new wood from the mountain and waited for them to dry until they were no longer deformed. The first class was three years.

The old building is preserved, and the soul of the sugar house is there. Until now, locals used to call this place a sugar factory, and the bus stop sign across the street also said sugar factory station.

Old building

In 20 13, on the basis of Zhao Chongxin's conception, designer Dong Gong added a new building to the periphery of the old building, and completed the design of the main guest room building, guest room building in villa area, fitness center, spa and landscape pool.

Anyone who is familiar with Anaya will be familiar with Dong Gong. The local landmarks of online celebrities-Lonely Library and Anaya Auditorium-were created by this designer. When he received the design invitation for the sugar house, he was earlier than Anaya.

New building

When designing new buildings, the East Palace always takes the old buildings as the core, so that the main guest room building and guest room building in the villa area surround the old buildings.

In order to echo the old building, the facade of the main guest room building adopts fair-faced concrete with a strong sense of granularity, and a sloping roof is also designed. In order to echo the style of folk houses in northern Guangxi, a zigzag brick wall was set outside the main guest room building, which looked like a hollow exquisite handicraft from a distance. In order to echo the surrounding karst landform, the main guest room building also specially "dug" three bamboo holes, which instantly made this long building flexible and transparent.

Dong Gong also built three landscape pools to introduce the surrounding mountains indoors-the mountains are reflected in the water, and even indoors, you seem to be in the mountains and rivers.

As the origin of the whole sugar house, the original abandoned truss site was transformed into a swimming pool, similar to a church in nostalgia.

homesickness

swimming pool

July 20 17, the sugar house opened. 20 18 Dong Gong took the sugar house to the Venice Architecture Biennale. Combining the beauty of nature, architecture and deformity perfectly, the sugar house quickly stepped out of the circle and became popular in the design circle.

20 18 1, supermodel Du Fu came to the candy house, went boating on the Lijiang River and strolled in the mountains, shooting a group of fashion blockbusters for Archives magazine. From June 2065438 to June 2009, at the Ahead Global International Hotel Design Award, Sugar House PK defeated Tokyo Hongxi Yeya and won the "Best Resort Hotel" and the "Global Ultimate Award". 2065438+July 2009, the French architectural magazine' A'A' took the sugar house as the cover, and the French title directly stated that "the fundamental function of architecture is to discover and reveal the spirit of a world".

The British architectural book Details and the Italian architectural design magazine Casa Bella ... The appearance of candy houses on the covers of architecture, design and lifestyle magazines is not new, but Yang Xiaodong's frequent awards are a complete surprise.

"All the efforts are worthwhile. Others may not do it for more than three years. We spent twelve years from beginning to end. When sailing, others can jump, but you can't. The boat is yours! Finally, this is a miracle. " Yang Xiaodong admits that many international judges have never been to a candy house, and they are often moved by a few photos or a video.

The sugar house with history and story has become a landmark building in Yangshuo. At the moment when homesickness is blowing hard, attracting waves of people to punch cards is all-round for northern Guangxi and even the whole of Guangxi.

Because of the success of the sugar factory, Yang Xiaodong even got the nickname of "factory director", and all the old factories in Guangxi invited him to transform. In the past two years, he has visited factories everywhere and seen more than forty or fifty.

How did the art festival come into being?

Besides being a venture capitalist, Yang Xiaodong is also a standard literary youth.

In 2000, because he liked large-format photography, he went to Beijing Film Academy to study photography with Feng Jianguo. Teacher Feng said that good photography should be learned from movies. He took the opportunity to learn many art movies, and the most impressive one was tarkovsky's Homesickness.

Yang Xiaodong is a travel enthusiast. Later, he changed his travel ideas and began to travel with movie scenes. At first, he would bring his own photographic equipment. The tripod and camera add up to 25 kilograms, and he was fined several times. He never dared to take the equipment out of the country again.

Introduction to the Old Shadows of the Candy House

The seeds of literature and art have already been planted. Therefore, after the advent of the sugar house, in addition to the daily functional area, it also opened up a lot of artistic and literary space.

For example, the three installations on display in the lobby echo the landscape of Guilin, and then talk to the old sugar factory and the new building respectively, all of which were customized by the young sculpture artist Wei Wu.

Liu Chuanhong's series of paintings "A Brief History of Old Shadows in Sugar House" are displayed in the gallery. The painter fictionalized Liu Shiqiao, a character of the Republic of China, and told his family story of opening a sugar factory after studying abroad from the perspective of diary. These diaries look just like old photos. History is very interesting, but it is not so heavy for fictional characters.

The screening hall shows "Sister Liu" at 3pm and "Homesickness" at 8pm every day: the former was shot at 196 1 and set in Yangshuo, which is a well-known folk scenery music feature film in China; The latter was shot at 1983, which is the initial intention of the sugar house and can help every visitor understand the origin of the sugar house.

In July 2020, under the conscious planning, the sugar house had a brand-new art section, and performances, exhibitions, poems and other activities followed. For the first performance in July, singer Chace, guitarist Jun Xiao and drummer Annie Ann were welcomed to the 1969 bar, and the three big boys had a good time. At that time, the second season of "Summer of the Band" had not been aired, and they had not become popular on the Internet in the name of Mandarin.

With more and more intensive artistic and cultural activities, the Sugar Fire Art Festival came into being, lasting from 10 to 2020 12.

Dai Jinhua

"The film is the greatest artistic heritage left to mankind in the 20th century, and in this heritage, tarkovsky is the diamond in the crown. If you have never met Tarkovsky once in your life, that is your shortcoming. " On June 5438+065438+ 10, 2020, Dai Jinhua's lecture set off a small climax. She analyzed many important scenes in the movie "Homesickness", including the church similar to the sugar house swimming pool. "It seems to be covered in a hollow concrete frame shell, which is the most important modeling feature of tarkovsky films."

Tarkovsky is recognized as a "film poet". Nostalgia, which was filmed in his later years, is very poetic and has a high threshold. "What I didn't understand in these 20 years, Mr. Dai understood in a sentence or two." Yang Xiaodong remembers that the audience present on the day of the lecture were all big coffee in the literary and art circles, which was the attraction of literature and art.

Dai Jinhua, folk musician Xiao Juan & a resident of the valley, cellist Song Zhao, etc.

Folk musician Xiao Juan &; Song Zhao, a resident of the valley and cellist, also came: they played side by side in the bar 1969; They row boats on the Lijiang River and sing with the landscape as the curtain. They strolled on the stone steps of Stone Town, humming folk songs and playing the cello. The touching sound of the piano seems to hide the ancient story of Stone Town. With the sound of the piano, Dai Jinhua came out from behind the stone wall, and he had a feeling.

"Tibetan incense"

From June 5438 to February 2020, Feng Jianguo, who has become a professor at Tsinghua University Academy of Fine Arts, also came to the sugar house and opened a large-format photography exhibition "Tibetan incense".

Feng Jianguo was the first artist to take home a large-format photography course from a foreign academic school. Around 2000, he carried an old and heavy camera, went to Tibet to seek dreams, made a pilgrimage to the frontier snow area, and fixed a large number of gelatin and silver salt photos in large format. Nearly 20 of them are on display in this exhibition.

"upstream"

Also in June 5438+February 2020, Liu Jiayu, a post-90s artist who graduated from the Royal College of Art, created a dream of "going upstream" on the exposed rock wall of Tangshe Karst Garden. This is a three-dimensional projection of a mountain. The distant projection hits the rock wall, just like the smart water floating on it.

Liu Jiayu first came to the sugar shed at the end of July 2020. When she returned to her room, she suddenly found that the rock wall was facing the balcony, and was illuminated by a faint white light in the dark, as if she saw the water flow. At that moment, she was inspired by generate and intuitively felt that this was the new job she wanted to do. It is found that the rock wall is 800 square meters, and the projection needs a distance of 100 meters to hit it. After nearly half a year's long-distance work with the London technical team, Liu Jiayu finally achieved "upstream" with six high-definition projections with 28,000 lumens.

Night of bonfire folk songs

On Christmas Eve and peaceful night, Chen Fei, a folk musician, "wandered" to the candy house and performed two "bonfire folk nights" in succession, pulling bass and drummer, and he sang "Stay Green", "Amber" and "White Horse". ...

In front of him is the blue swimming pool, behind him is the quiet Lijiang River, with fireworks all over the sky and a bonfire burning vigorously. The audience either baked sweet potatoes around the campfire or danced with warm bamboo poles ... After holding so many concerts at home and abroad, it was the first time for Chen Fei to face such a fireworks show. Although his hands were frozen stiff, he couldn't help feeling, "The environment is so beautiful and so fun!"

"into the fire"

The fire pit culture with a long history is spread all over the ethnic minority villages in southwest China, which can be used not only to warm the stove, but also to worship the gods and pray for the peaceful future. On New Year's Eve, architect Guo Liaohui's tailor-made device for the sugar house "entered the fire pond". After standing in the wind for two months, it ignited a raging fire. In the blazing flame, people bid farewell to 2020 and entered 202 1.

"This is a temporary building, but I don't want to make it as exquisite as a gift box, but I still need to be able to connect with the surrounding environment." Guo Liaohui finally designed a lightweight, abstract and skeletal fireplace device: three groups of wood squares are superimposed on each other to form a vertical skeleton; Three groups of black linen "skirts" cover the main structure, which looks like fir trees from a distance, like a shrinking roof and like an oversized umbrella; The three-story roof provides a sheltered space where people can hide in the space under the wooden structure and sit around the campfire.

"A device is to a place what a building is to a city." Architect Dong Gong saw Into the Fire and felt the importance of the device.

"For people with different visions and roles, it is meaningful to explore the characteristics of this venue from their own artistic perspective, because art gathers in such a land with precipitation." Guo Liaohui's evaluation of "Sugar Fire Art Festival". After visiting museums and art galleries in Europe, Feng Jianguo felt that the vitality of art is the most lasting, and only art can be passed down from generation to generation to nourish the spiritual world of future generations, which is also the significance of the Sugar Fire Art Festival.

Although it is still in the exploratory stage, Yang Xiaodong has decided to hold the Sugar Fire Art Festival from June 5438+00 to February 12 every year, making it a "local" art festival. "Many people come to Yangshuo to see the mountains and rivers, and they can also come to the sugar house to listen to a concert and watch an exhibition."

Nowadays, more and more musicians will list the sugar house as one of the stops when touring in the south, and the daily performance of the sugar house has been scheduled to 202 1.

The sugar house even has an artist's "resident plan": when the artist comes, he creates with inspiration, without inspiration or compulsion. Music, dance, sound, installation, multimedia ... Yang Xiaodong does not exclude any form of art and is very tolerant. "There are mountains, water and old buildings here, and there are many things to learn from."

Just like Liu Jiayu, her projection art is instantaneous, fleeting and can't be collected. When Yang Xiaodong invited her, she didn't know whether she would have any inspiration or creative achievements. As a result, she came to a "countercurrent" and took it by surprise. "For me, one feedback among 1000 people is a surprise."

In terms of landscape and architecture, candy houses activate the lives of local people through interesting artistic activities.

Proofreading: Ding Xiao