The Progress of Stones, 2025
Site-specific performance
As one of the oldest castles in Wales, Castell Dinas Brân is believed to have been built in the late thirteenth century. It served as a strategic fortress during a time of intense conflict with the English until being destroyed in 1277. The same time in China marks the final stage of Han resistance against the Mongol invasion, leading to the fall of the Southern Song dynasty in 1279. Li Binyuan collected four pieces of heavy rock along the mountain path, bound them respectively to both of his legs and forearms, and crawled through the castle ruins. Those few hundred metres of expedition construct an arduous moment in which fragility contrasts with permanence, and the ephemeral merges with the enduring. What Li strove to carry is not just a collection of randomly found stones, but perhaps the missing fragments of the ruins, a revived past, or a reference point to envision our future. In Li’s performance, Castell Dinas Brân embodies the evolution of a nation and the spirit of its resilience, not necessarily any specific one, but rather, a shared human nation, whether in the East or the West in this temporary world.
Creative Process of Artist
Li Binyuan
Participating artist elaborates their creative concepts and processes.
Performance Art Land 2025 Artist
Li Binyuan
Li Binyuan was born in Yongzhou, Hunan Province, China in 1985, and graduated from Central Academy of Fine Arts in 2011. Now he lives and works in Berlin and Yongzhou. Li explores physicality, substance, environment, conceptual cognition, and social values through physical actions, video works, and performances, which serve as the portal to the social fabric of everyday society.
His works have been exhibited throughout the US, Europe, and Asia, and are in the permanent collections of The Museum of Modern Art, M+, and other art institutions. Selected solo exhibitions include Becoming Li Binyuan, Song Art Museum, Beijing, China (2025), Flowing Fire, Contemporary Gallery Kunming, Kunming, China (2024), Cinema Paradiso, Pingshan Art Museum, Shenzhen, China (2020), The Last Letter, Observation Society, Guangzhou, China，2020). Li is the winner of The Grand Prize Winner of the 17th Sovereign Asian Art Prize (2021), The Chinese Youth Artist Award of the 14th AAC Art (2020), The Golden Key Award nomination at the 37th Kassel Documentary Festival (2020), The Merit Award by Inward Gazes - Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art (2015).