Site 10: Xichang Long March Satelite Station, Sichuan Province

Liu Chengying arrived in Xichang just after 05:00 in the morning. Lu Jie and company arrived at 07:00. Zhan Wang and Qiu Zhijie moved toward the hotel. At lunch, they met Yang Jie.

A French girl Wang Qile came from Shanghai especially to check out the Long March. The whole team was separated into two tasks.

Lu Jie and Zhan Wang with camera crew went to the satellite station. Lu Jie persuaded the guards and gained access for himself, Zhan Wang, and Zhan Wang’s assistant Xiao Zou into the station but two cameramen, Li Li and Xiaomin, were not allowed as any filming was not allowed.

They met with the deputy director of the propaganda department for the satellite station and Lu Jie explained that they had come to exchange ideas about the interactive relationship between culture and technology with the artists of the station, to call on their artistic colleagues, to discuss the feasibility and significance of completing works of art. Continuing on, he introduced Zhan Wang’s proposal, entitled New Plan to Fill the Sky.

The assistant department chief called Department Chief Li, head of the propaganda department. Lu Jie, Zhan Wang and Department Chief Li discussed the meaning of Zhan Wang’s work, the peacemaking, constructive, and environmentally friendly aspects of the Chinese aerospace industry, and even the economic benefits the industry brings to the Chinese people. Department Chief Li shared his own understanding of the aerospace industry, giving the visitors a lesson in aerospace history. One round of conversation later, Department Chief Li stated that he supported Zhan Wang’s work mentally and objectively. But at present, such expensive technology as satellite launching must still be used only for economic development. Zhan Wang understood and said he would donate this fake meteorite to the satellite station, letting them wait until conditions were sufficient to launch it into space. The two propaganda department chiefs agreed to look into this.

Qiu Zhijie had met at eight that morning with the director of the on-site museum and vice-chairman of the artists’ association Cao Hui. Together they visited Zhu Diquan, chairman of the artists’ association. Shortly thereafter, Ah Ge arrived, he and Cao Hui both former students of Chairman Zhu. Zhu suggested to hold a Long March exhibition in the museum, moving the cultural artifacts for a moment and emptying out the cases and shelves inside. Ah Ge and Cao Hui at once accompanied Qiu Zhijie to visit the museum building which was in the original gate of Xichang’s former city walls. Qiu arranged with the manager and returned with Yang Jie that afternoon to install the exhibition. After hanging the paintings, they found a piece of red cloth in the conference room and made it into a banner bearing “Mind and Matter: Contemporary Art Exhibition and Conference” which was hung from the battlements of the city gate.

At nightfall, Wang Qile hurried away to catch the night train. Wang said that without coming to the scene, she never would have understood the Long March. This line actually startled Lu Jie, who thought back and realized that the Long March’s triplicate function as “manifesto, seeding-machine, and propaganda team” (as per Mao’s famous quote) was now out of balance.

Liu Chengying, Thought Must Be Liberal, performance

At 18:00 they reached the satellite launch site, where a massive launching pad stood upright on a distant mountain ridge. They tested the wind in several different locations, and then decided to realize the work on a wide riverbank. Liu Chengying had refined his kite plan long before; he would use string, sticks of bamboo, and silk that he had prepared earlier. He worked to assemble these quickly, and in a short while, a kite inscribed ‘Thought Must Be Liberated’ appeared before everyone’s eyes.

Making a kite is easy; flying a kite depends on the sky. The day’s wind was insufficient, and after trying a few times, the kite fell from the sky. Liu Chengying adjusted the kite’s structure and center of gravity, the kite finally wobbled into the sky, and the seven characters for “Thought Must Be Liberated” floated through the interminable vastness of the twilight, the satellite launching pad hovering in the background. Romantic and poetic, it called up many more historical memories.