So Long IFChina Original Studio

Jian Yi talks to a student volunteer at IFChina Original Studio in March this year.

In my “Newsbites” post of October 29, I noted that IFChina Original Studio, an initiative of Chinese filmmaker Jian Yi and his wife Eva, had been told it had to leave Jinggangshan University. Last Saturday (November 5) Jian Yi issued an official statement confirming the studio’s closure.

You Can’t Build on an Emptiness – IFChina Original Studio

Earlier this year I was privileged to spend a few days staying with filmmaker Jian Yi in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, at his IFChina Original Studio. The studio is an exciting initiative recently launched by Jian Yi and his wife Eva. The following is an article I wrote for RealTime magazine in Australia about IFChina's work.


Originally published in RealTime arts magazine.

You Can’t Build on an Emptiness – IFChina Original Studio

IFChina Original Studio founder and filmmaker Jian Yi, outside the studio on the campus of Jinggangshan University. Photo: Dan Edwards

Ji’an doesn’t look like the most auspicious place for a groundbreaking experiment in China’s budding civil society. The town doesn’t appear in any English language guidebooks, the local station platform is just a low-slung slab of concrete and, in early spring when I visited, a bone chilling mist hung over the town. Yet this minor Chinese city is home to IFChina original studio, a bold attempt to generate community participation in the arts and oral history in the heart of one of China’s poorest regions.