Artistic interventions: Art, community, and media in China and beyond

Artistic interventions in communities have become increasingly prevalent in the context of quality-led urbanization and rural revitalization in China over the past decade. These art practices reflect a narrative of resistance toward the institutionalization, professionalization, and marketization of contemporary art through direct interventions in social reality. Community is the most common site from which public aesthetic action and social activism emerge to increase public awareness and promote community engagement. With the rise of new media technologies, multi-media have gradually been combined in socially engaged art projects, which has blurred the boundaries between concrete materials and virtual media as well as that between physical places and the online community. This article first outlines a literature review on the changing avant-garde spirit in both global and Chinese art history to better understand the concepts of artistic interventions. Second, as a major intervention in this field, the focus on community reflects the interflow of the theoretical search for communicative ethics and community reconstruction movements worldwide. Third, the role of the media in socially engaged art and its future implications are discussed. In the conclusion section, a variety of specific contexts in China and beyond and the various intervention aims and methods of five selected articles are introduced.