Beijing East Village was a community of avant-garde artists who settled in an impoverished area of eastern Beijing in the early 1990s. The residents of Beijing East Village included primarily the first generation of Chinese performance artists, as well as the photographers who documented their work. The name of the artistic community was inspired by the East Village in Manhattan, with which they felt a connection in their experimental aesthetic. Most of the politically motivated art was based on performances that blurred the lines between art and life and were meant to counteract the violent changes in Chinese culture.
