Ou Ning

Ou Ning
Ou Ning in Beijing, 2008

Ou Ning (simplified Chinese: 欧宁; traditional Chinese: 歐寧; pinyin: ōu níng) is an activist, writer, curator and artist. As an advocate to ruralism in China, he founded Bishan Commune and School of Tillers in Bishan Village, Huangshan, Anhui, two spaces for intellectuals and practitioners who devote to rural reconstruction movement in China. As an activist, he founded U-thèque, an independent film and video organization in 1999. He also edited and designed New Sound of Beijing. As a curator, he initiated the biennale exhibition Get It Louder in 2005, 2007, and 2010. For the 2010 exhibition he chose Sharism as the overarching theme. Additional curator duties have involved launching the sound project in China Power Station, co-organized by Serpentine Gallery and Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art; As an artist, he is known for the urban research projects such as San Yuan Li, commissioned by 50th Venice Biennale (2003), and Da Zha Lan, commissioned by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. He is a frequent contributor of various magazines, books and exhibition catalogues and has lectured around the world. In 2009, he was appointed the chief curator of 2009 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture (09SZHKB), and was chosen to be the jury member of the 8th Benesse Prize at the 53rd Venice Biennale. He is now the curator of The Solutions: Design and Social Engineering for the 2011 Chengdu Biennale and founded a new literary bi-monthly magazine Chutzpah (Tian Nan in Chinese) (2011-2013). He was the director of Shao Foundation and member of Asian Art Council 2011 at Guggenheim Museum. He has been based in Bishan Village since 2011.