Artist: Dong Jie
Project Introduction: The “Following the Current” project is an initiative that involves traveling upstream from the mouth of the Yangtze River to its source in Qinghai. The project is planned in three stages. In the first stage, suitable cities are selected along the route, such as Hubei, Chongqing, Sichuan, Yunnan, etc. A suitable site near the water is chosen, such as Chengdu in Sichuan Province, where the LuxeLake area is selected. Local performance artists are organized to collectively implement a live performance on-site in a manner conducive to the creators. The process is recorded on video. The second and third stages are kept confidential to protect the creative rights. Ultimately, the works from various locations are edited together to create an experimental performance video. This project also serves as an examination of the creative conditions of performance artists along the Yangtze River. Every participant in the collaborative creation is considered a co-author of the performance video, with shared rights to copyright, publicity, and distribution. The first performance of the first stage took place in Tianfu Park in Chengdu in May 2023.