Beijing Changping Qiliqu Temporary Shelter
Xu Ruotao
Release year: 2008
Run time: 10 mins
Film type: Animation
Synopsis
Beijing Changping Qiliqu Temporary Shelter is a shelter that was part of the network of temporary shelters used in China from the early 1950s to accommodate homeless people (the liumang 流氓). Changping Qiliqu shelter was used as a detention center in the 1990s, in particular, to incarcerate recalcitrant Yuanmingyuan artists, including Xu Ruotao. With its cold and soulless images, this video has a latent subversive tone, and a consistent vision of a hostile world.
Director biography
Xu Ruotao, born in 1968 in Shenyang, China, is a visual artist and film director who lives and works in Songzhuang, a growing artist village on the outskirts of the Beijing municipality. Xu began his career in the creative community of Yuanmingyuan, China’s first independent artist village. He started making films in 2000 and has produced two features, Yumen (2013) and Rumination (2009).