An Interview is Yide’er and Li Xianting about Yide’er’s creation. They talk about the specific ideas and implementation of Happy Prince.Li (Li Xianting): This is like shooting a film, you have to be the producer, the director and its actor, in which you have to be resolving various complex relationships and organizations at all times. Yi (Yide’er): Yes, like when I shot Happy Prince on the topic of Mao, I first asked a student of mine to finalize the particular position for the sculpture on Mao, after that I shot some source material on my own, and then I contacted the manager. Often to directly contact a manager would end in refusal, because how to go about things in China one had to go through proper channels of connections, saving the nation on its curbs! I decided to shoot in front of the Mao sculpture of the copper factory in Baotou, through a friend’s introduction, I got through to the person in charge of promotions of this large state-owned company, and explained clearly that I am not doing performance art. Once this issue was resolved, during the shoot process, I had to resolve the series of problems with make-ups, ladders and cars on site. My shoot if after all does not employ an entire cast and crew, nor can I say the production and make up meets the standard. Although each person’s responsibility make it seem like a crew. Li: Even for a crew, the most comprehensive art media, the post popular artistic approach is through film, and the current solutions in implementation apply the filmic methods, a new approach in media. Yi: That’s right. Li: Can you talk about the specific ideas and implementation of Happy Prince?Yi: I thought of Wang Erde’s fairytale Happy Prince, a story is perhaps not that familiar to children today, but quite memorable for those of our generation. When we were little, there weren’t any fairytales. I was born in 1961, and my entire childhood lived through the Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, fairytales for me were Mao’s quotations. The time I was truly exposed to fairytales was after 1976, and suddenly I realized there were stories like that in this world, and such kind of writing. In fact, I was no longer at the age reading fairytales, but reading them still touched me, in fact it was an evidence for a lack of entertainment growing up. I remember clearly when Happy Prince was broadcasted on the radio for the first time, we had a small radio at home, of Meiduo brand, it was quite rusty, there were many cracks on its outer shell, and was taped layers after layers. When the story progressed to the happy prince sculpture was about to be demolished, my sadness made me felt that the small radio was becoming chill, and my emotions were completely absorbed in the plot of the story. I was in my final year of middle school, but my emotional intelligence was probably only ten years old, I can still recall it quite vividly today. This story gave me imaginations, what the happy prince conveyed was a story of saving people from hardships, and in our childhood, we also received similar teaching, Mao taught us, “there were still two third of the people in this world were living in hardship”, “the proletariat could only liberate themselves once they have liberated humanity”, “you are the morning sun at nine o’clock, and our hope is entrusted in you”. In order to save the world, I need to know how to save it before I devote myself, when I was befuddled with what kind of attitude should I have been concerned with the world, this was the kind of teaching I received, and when I realized there were problems to the teaching I have received, to look back, this was the impression I got – it is inevitable to use the Happy Prince’s approach to care and save the world. When you needed to be humane to understand the world, you were taught with to understand it with inhumane approaches, once you have grown, and equipped with rational thinking, and become able to understand the world with your own judgment, you would have gained a simple, and humane approach to understand the world. This process seems to be put in disorder with me, perhaps it is dark humor, and I still feel I can’t verbalize it quite clearly. Li: For certain things, because each person’s experience is different, so his understanding and feelings would also be different, with these differences, and consequently that means different approaches to artworks. Your memory of the Happy Prince is very crucial to your execution of the Mao sculpture and your own relationship with it, unlike the young intellectual artists’ execution of subjects on Mao, and even less compare to the trendy Mao subject artworks to make money with, which are mostly simple mockery. Happy Prince took the approach from a bottom up perspective. You sat on a tall base, on top of the white sculpture of Mao, you installed a small golden sculpture, Mao waving his hands and you in gold, creating a unidentifiable dangerous relation – and this subconscious danger is merged in one’s happy imaginations. Yi: I always wanted to work on the idea of the Happy Prince, although I have not found an appropriate approach to express it. When I saw the Mao sculpture, I found my exit. Li: You have always been trying to extend this series. Yi: Right, I wanted to exhaust one thing, and often that is what you need to do the most. And if you are working for any particular idea, I don’t think it’s interesting. Li: I think there is a problem in contemporary art, either with its search for new medium, or particular language adopted for artworks, or what it wanted to express, there are too many “ideas”, but there is too little in one’s experience of the living process or feeling alive. Should art move people, or should it have the approach to narrate the feeing of being alive. Yi: I can sense your feelings when you curated Prayer Beats and Brush Strokes, you said, “art can be produced as religion”, I felt quite deeply at that time, when I was working on this series, I felt there was something supported me to work. I don’t make lots work every year, because I have intentionally slowed down my working rhythm. In fact I have many projects, and I could probably do them all in one year, but I feel that’s being irresponsible for one’s life. I wanted to work a little bit each year, and one’s life is long, and one should take time to taste it. Li: One’s understanding on life deepens as his experience enriches, and thus becomes more difficult to verbalize, “now you have tasted the worries, even if you are about to speak it, you choose to retire …”Yi: That’s right, even though this is a sad saying, but the idea is powerful! In this process, one’s heart often feels, “the thousand mountains do not allow any stream to surge, it can stop the sound of the waves yet not the noise day and night.”