Some people say that a hot sunny day is best spent indoors and that is exactly how I spent the first sunny day in Changshu for over a week, with a trip to the Changshu Art Museum (www.csart.org).

The CS Art Museum, opened in 2005 and has a regularly changing exhibition calendar showing works from local and overseas artists. Currently it houses three exhibitions, all linked by the common theme of mixing tradition and modern, with contemporary takes on traditional Chinese art forms; stamps, calligraphy and scroll paintings.

The ground floor exhibition spaces house the calligraphy exhibition which includes beautiful examples of different calligraphy styles. One section was full of works based on the poet Qu Yuan’s (c. 340-278 bc) work by different artists and highlighted the different styles of calligraphy that is being practiced in China today. With limited (almost non existent) English signage in all three exhibitions it was hard to decipher much from the works. Calligraphy appreciated in two ways, visually and also the poem that it is based on. Without being able to read the poem, a layer of additional meaning of the work is lost but they are still beautiful in their own rights as visual objects.

On the first floor was the stamp exhibition, filling three exhibition spaces. The exhibition was based around the traditional Chinese practice of stamp making and had some key examples of the Changshu style and highlighted the wide range of different stones used in the practice today. The exhibition design for this section was better than usual with the entrance to the exhibition broken up with thin panels with laser cut red Perspex stamp impressions on them. The way in which the stamps were displayed was also well done. Each display case contained two stamps with information (in Chinese only) about the artist and the stone used. Behind the cases were framed displays of other stamp examples from the same artist which was a great way to see the different ways people are creating stamps. It was surprising to see the amount of young artists that were still practicing this old art form. 

The third exhibition went across two floors and two large exhibition spaces. With no English translations it was hard to get any information from this exhibition that started with large didactic panels all in Chinese. The exhibition is based on an artist that lived 660 years ago (maybe…) called Huang Gong Wang who was famous for his mountain river scroll paintings. The exhibition moves quickly through other artists that followed him through time to contemporary artists. The two standout works for me were two of the last works executed by contemporary artists. One was a layered work of thin rice paper that instead of being painted it had been burnt with a cigarette to reveal the mountain river landscape. The other was an interactive animation work that reacted to the viewers body movements. Split across three projectors and displayed in a long darkened room with a motion-sensing camera it was an impressive way to end the exhibition. 

Overall the exhibitions were culturally enriching, refreshing and engaging. Well worth a visit on a quiet afternoon to see how contemporary Chinese artists are balancing between the old and the new. 

The small county level city of Changshu lays approximately 1.5hours from Shanghai. By no means an important tourist destination, the city still retains a beautiful atmosphere. 

With a long and interesting history the city was declared an independent town in 540CE. It has had a fairly peaceful history with the only major conflict being Japanese pirate raids in the 15th and 16th C.

Traditionally it relied on its agricultural trade and the name Changshu roughly translates to chang “always” shu “harvest” referring to its fertile farm land.

With the rapid modernisation of China, Changshu no longer relies on its agriculture for the main source of income but now is home to many factories especially in the textile industry and is known for its garment production.

With approximately 1.1 million inhabitants it is considered small in comparison to other Chinese cities but still has good infrastructure. Apart from lacking a train station, the city has most things needed to be comfortable and still has a small town feel.

Even though it is a small town that is relatively unheard of in China it does have an interesting list of important people as former inhabitants. Most notably the nuclear physicist Wang Gangchang who has been refered to as the “father of China’s Hydrogen bomb”. (for more information on this fascinating person please visit http://kaleidoscope.cultural-china.com/en/185Kaleidoscope6364.html)

Sadly with China’s long march towards the future it is likely that Changshu and other towns like it will slowly loose its identity by the focus on international trade and the growing desire for everything new. But for now it still has a delicate balance of the two, new cars and apartments, new shopping centres and department stores as well as the old town markets and some traditional farms.