Ever increasing circles

"When our lives are hindered by the pandemic, art should shoulder the responsibility of offering some spiritual consolation, with a mission to arouse people's passion for life," says Che.

The 29-year-old explains that they had been working toward the inauguration of the art center since 2019, but the opening was delayed a number of times due to the pandemic. Finally, she made the decision to open it to the public earlier this year, although the art center still had to deal with difficulties brought about by the pandemic.

"We struggled, but we made it," she says. "We hope to foster a close and deep interaction with artists, scholars and professionals from different areas."

As well as her role as the founder of the art center, Che works for her family's furniture business and owns her own furniture brands. The young woman is also an art collector. She first began collecting art at the age of 24, after she graduated from college.

Che loves to meet and chat with artists, a group she considers to be "very interesting and charming". She also dabbled in producing her own oil paintings and sculptures several years ago.

With a great passion for art, Che decided in 2019 to establish an art museum that would be different from other such institutions and offer a distinct mission. She discussed this approach with her art team and decided that the center would be "a community of creative connections" to gather as many artists from as many different fields as possible.

The museum's opening show The Elephant Escaped commissioned five young artists to make video works based on novelist Lu's Wuxingzhe (Mistwalkers). The novel published in 2020 tells a story that stretches from a flood in 1998 to the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, documenting the lives of several characters amid a fast-changing society.