Xiaobei Cheng, female; writer, poet and photographer. Beginning in the 1980s, concurrently with her career as a doctor, she wrote numerous poems and published three collections: Love of Life, A Stolen Pen, and She Runs In and Out. In 1997she began to write fiction and published the novels Life of Resignation and Are You Crazy!
Beginning in 2000, she organized and initiated “Beijing Shangyuan Art Museum” and “China Modern Architecture Park”; at the same time she wrote the novel Construction Story.
In 1987, she travelled to shoot pictures, starting from Chengdu, She went to several revolutionary bases—in Sichuan, North Shaanxi Plateau, Shanxi, Gansu, and Ningxia, then returned to Beijing with detours to Shanxi and Hebei. In her two-month trip she made over 10,000 photographs. She also shot many photo stories and photo poems, among which “Grass Growing Season” and “I should sing” were published in Youth and Young People’s Magazine. She offered a new form of expression for literary publications. Some of her works have been exhibited internationally and have won prizes at photo exhibitions. Her photos have been used as cover pages for books, journals and magazines. In 2006 she showed in the “Photographic Art” section of the “Shangyuan Art Museum Exhibition of Architectural Action Art.”
Organization and Promotion: In 2000 she began arranging for construction of the Shangyuan Art Scene (also known as the China Modern Architecture Scene). The Shangyuan Art Scene is composed of 21 works of original architecture occupying a total area of 30,000 meters. The total floor area of the buildings is 19,000 square meters. Total investment is 70,000,000 yuan. All funds were raised by the artists who belong to Shangyuan. Construction of the Shangyuan Art Exhbition Hall and dormitories was basically finished in October 2007.
Cheng, Xiaobei: “I respect those poets who are honest, innocent and conscientious. However, I don’t think it appropriate to determine my own identity as a poet. In writing, I fail to live up to a poet’s high status and let words drip down like blood from my fingertips. Perhaps words dripping down from above be like flowers spread by a fairy? But a fairy is a virtual person who neither eats nor sleeps. We can only borrow her eyes to see frozen dead bodies with a sideways glance. However, we can not borrow her skin to feel coldness and bitter pain as Du Fu experienced it. Pain is a form of evidence. We all know it is a prerequisite to experience pain before understanding what it is. Otherwise, pain can only be a syllable which is spelled “tong” in Chinese Romanization. It takes a person who is closer to her essence to write what she herself experienced. People must first be concerned with their own sensibility before reaching out to help others, the nation, the country, as well as humankind… Otherwise, an innovative piece of writing will refuse my touch and entry. They will not let me sigh together with the writer.
程小蓓