KEYNOTE SESSION:
Model Reconstruction and Innovative Development of Rural Economic Revitalization Driven by Art in China —Taking the Yi River Area as a Case
DESCRIPTION:
Rooted in local culture and drawing on international experience, the Yi River Area has pioneered a distinctive development model featuring art empowerment, ecological integration, which has transformed idle farmhouses and stone structures into more than 50 world-class art venues and themed homestays, hosts annual peach blossom festivals and art events, and evolved into a showcase of Chinese cultural villages to the world with local culture as the core of on-site creation and villagers as key participants. This model has yielded remarkable outcomes: shifted local tourism from simple agritourism to high-value immersive cultural experiences, and driven the integrated development of related industries such as smart agriculture, food processing and export, cultural tourism, and education. Villagers’ per capita annual income has hit 54,000 yuan, and total investment has skyrocketed from 488 million yuan to over 2 billion yuan. It has strongly reactivated the declining rural economy.
This speech will not only tell the model but deeply analyze its mechanism about how the systematic artistic intervention, and how it unites international artists, university teams and local villagers as co-creators, how it converts cultural symbols into high-value products and experiences, and how it enables villagers to evolve from bystanders to participants and beneficiaries. Undoubtedly, this model embodies the inheritance of local traditions and the integration of tradition and modernity, it has turned static cultural heritage into dynamic practice，which provides us an valuble and replicable reference for China’s rural comprehensive revitalization through culture and art tourism .
SPEAKER:
Dr. Lingyun Zhang is an Associate Professor and Associate Dean at the School of Literature and Journalism and the College of Rural Revitalization, Shandong University of Finance and Economics. She also serves as Director of the China International Creative Industry Research Institute. Dr. Zhang holds a Ph.D. in Cultural Industry Management from Shandong University and completed postdoctoral research at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau. She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph in Canada.
Her research expertise spans creative economics, cultural and creative industries, tourism planning and policy, cultural heritage conservation, regional economics, and rural revitalization. Dr. Zhang has led and participated in numerous national and provincial research projects, published extensively in CSSCI and international journals, and authored influential monographs, including Theory and Practice of Cultural Industry Parks. She is an active advisor to government bodies and an international member of tourism and education research associations.