Contemporary Environmental Art in China: Portraying Progress,Politics, and Ecosystems

Art has long been an important force in environmental movements. In China, environmental art is a fast-growing sector of the art scene. This new area of emphasis is expanding the function of art and aiding in China’s environmental movement by challenging both imported Western practices and Maoist era philosophy, thereby opening up new ways of considering the relationship between human “progress,” political systems, economic practices, and their repercussions on existing ecosystems. I turn to artist Xu Xiaoyan’s paintings to explore how the notion of “progress” can be challenged through art. I use Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of deterritorialization and reterritorialization to map how Xu’s art offers viewers space to think outside dominant paradigms, creates the potential for changes in human consciousness, considers the environment as a composition of relationships and interactions, and provokes discussion concerning the impact of linear notions of time on human conceptions of nature.