Ecology, Homeland, and Local Practice: The Zhouqian Art Community as a Case Study for Revitalizing Rural Architecture and the Spirit of Place

Addressing the challenges and contradictions of modernization requires attention to both its global dynamics and its diverse local manifestations. The tensions between city and countryside, homogenization and locality, and the alienation resulting from the loss of both spirit and place are a central concern of China’s Rural Reconstruction Movement. Drawing on local participation and ethnographic fieldwork, this research takes the Zhouqian Art Community in Guangdong, China as a case study to examine how art-led rural construction operates to restore relations between physical structure and the dense webs of social, ecological, and spiritual relationships within rural communities. In doing so, the study explores potential pathways for rebuilding a more-than-human sense of homeland and revitalizing local culture through the generative potential of architectural design and artistic initiative. We expand on existing scholarship by addressing the future of rural reconstruction through a post-anthropocentric lens, focusing on the coexistence of diverse intelligences and the intricate dynamics among technology, locality, and cosmology. We do so by advancing the Lingnan garden as a worlding practice and design figure that integrates urban and rural conditions, local attachments, and processes of abstraction into a shared, dynamic milieu.