Organizers: The Publicity Department of the CPC Dongguan Municipal Committee, Dongguan Municipal Office of Spiritual Civilization construction

Hosted by: Tang Museum Dongguan

Co-organizer: X Museum Beijing

Curator: You Yang

Curatorial Team: He Yujie, Zhu Yanan, Zhu Yuanling

Project Group: Li Junjie, Lin Xiaochen, Liu Jinshi, Zheng Jun, Ruan Qian, Zhang Xiaoyi

Cooperation and Sponsorship: Magician Space, Xie Xie Design, Bizen Art, Huatong Heavy Duty Packaging

Humans generate value and reimagine life through their hands, aspiring to live poetically within the urban landscape;cities, in turn, are defined by the collective memories and emotional imprints of generations of laborers. Since the reform and opening-up era, Dongguan has emerged as a vital manufacturing hub along China’s southern coast and a prominent new first-tier city. As a resident and astute observer of this dynamic context, Li Jinghu has developed a profound engagement with the materiality and form of art. Over two decades of creative practice, he has navigated and contemplated these elements, intertwining the rhythms of his time and individual destiny to construct his own unique artistic coordinates.

In 2002, at the age of 30, Li resigned from his position as an art teacher and returned to Dongguan from Shenzhen. After returning home, Li established his own creative methodologies and aspirations within his daily work and life, dissipating his previous uncertainties about contemporary art. As a first-hand witness to the expansive narrative of Dongguan’s reform and opening-up, he began to place his personal narrative within the context of social change, reflecting and presenting it in his works. The themes and materials he uses are largely drawn from his direct experiences in Dongguan, approaching the city’s modern development with a knee sensitivity to its continuity and rhythm. He attempts to highlight those moments that have remained in the shadows, yet hold the potential for individual lives to flourish. All the works in this exhibition, “I am Here! Witness of a City and 200 Million People”, originate from this “site”—a space that has been collectively witnessed and co-created by the two hundred million people who have grown alongside this city.

Li Jinghu often names his works after natural landscapes, imbuing everyday materials with new significance through contrast. For example, in White Clouds, he assembles fluorescent light tubes—commonly used in factory ceilings—into the shape of clouds, suspending them in the exhibition space. The lights that once illuminated the bodies of factory workers are transformed into a poetic manifestation of collective experience. The materiality of Li’s work serves as a conduit for connecting with specific production and living contexts. For example, mosaic tiles, closely associated with the industrial history of the South, were widely used on the exterior walls of factories, dormitories, and rental houses built in the 1990s, thus carrying symbolic weight tied to that era. Similarly, the stainless-steel tableware in  The Sun rises as usual every day evokes memories of communal dining halls. On the other hand, some of the materials possess a commensurable quality. Through repetitive arrangements, these man-made objects ultimately evolve into the accumulation of emotions, revealing themselves as more than mere materials. They embody the warmth of the maker’s hands and the gaze of the user, pointing toward the sun, mountains, and stars, transforming into a landscape that can be freely appreciated.

The repetition and variation in the materials he uses in works resonate with the rhythm of individual daily life, and create an intertextual dialogue with the city’s ongoing renewal. The viewer’s gaze and body, existing alongside the artwork, are embedded in the “actual” moment—much like in Waterfall, where multiple phone screens are connected to convey water cascading from different faucet spouts. This temporary “actual” moment or “punctum” differentiates art from pure repetition, while also connecting it to the relentless flow of the real world. These works, rooted in authentic scenes from Dongguan’s urban development, carry the weight of memory and lived experience, symbolizing the presence of humanity. In the exhibition, the viewers’ gazes also illuminate the moments captured in the works, creating an empathetic resonance between the individual and the works.