Projects
Experimental film, performance, public art, social practice, and international collaboration projects. 2000 — Present.
She Nian Fo
《舍念佛》 · Pa Pae Meditation Centre, Chiang Mai, Thailand
Social sculpture project rooted in Buddhist practice at Pa Pae meditation centre, between Chiang Mai and Pai. A conceptual Buddha — 'the Buddha of Letting Go' (舍念佛) — born from deep observation of the human inner life. A 44-page document of deep retreat, presence, and the practice of letting go.
View Project →My Flesh
《俺的肉》 · Ongoing
Role performance art project built around two mirror characters: Meng Chunsheng and Chun Mengsheng — names that are exact reversals of each other. Meng Chunsheng carries the secular self: identity, responsibility, social rules. Chun Mengsheng carries the spiritual self: desire, dreams, unfiltered life. Through live performance, text, and social interaction, the two enact the contradictions inside a single person.
View Project →OUR CHILDREN
《我们的孩子》 · Chiang Mai, Thailand
Public welfare art project focused on COVID-19 orphans in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Art assistance, psychological companionship, and free teaching — continuing Joseph Beuys' social sculpture concept through anthroposophy and the threefold social order. Conducted under the identity Hei Qiu'en.
View Project →Tea Dana
《茶布施》 · Lashihai, Lijiang & Chiang Mai
A sustained performance practice with tea as the medium, moving between Lashihai in Lijiang and Chiang Mai in Thailand. Tea becomes the material of social and spiritual art — an offering practice (布施), a quiet form of encounter between artist and public, teacher and student, stranger and stranger.
Five Hundred Arhats
《五百罗汉》 · Global — online premiere
A continuing large-scale project combining painting, sculpture, and performance — shaping portraits of contemporary all living beings. Interprets the integration of Buddhist spiritual practice and secular life. Global online premiere 2022, drawing audiences across continents. Grew from the 2021–2022 Searching for a Soulmate project line via 《五百罗汉在线》 (Five Hundred Arhats Online).
View Project →My Second Face
第二张脸 · Kunming, Yunnan, China
A series of performance and mask works exploring the second face — the face beneath the face. Rooted in Naxi creation mythology and the ancient understanding that all form evolves from water, the project moved through studio experiments, outdoor actions, and two public events: NCAB First and the Maska Project. Part of the Ten Years of Silence period.
View Project →Searching for a Soulmate
《寻找灵魂伴侣》 · China
A performance art project and long-form dialogue with Bao Mei (包梅) — 《寻找灵魂伴侣 / 寻找灵感伴侣》 (Searching for a Soulmate / Searching for a Creative Partner). Real social interaction and soul dialogue, exploring the essence of human nature, emotion, and life connection. Releases include the Declaration of Spiritual Soulmate (《灵魂性伴侣宣言》). The project line seeded 《五百罗汉在线》 — the Five Hundred Arhats Online global premiere plan.
Bao Mei (包梅)
ChuangTzu → Zhuangzi Project
桩子计划→庄子计划 · Bajie, Anning, Yunnan, China
Large-scale rural public art project in Bajie, Anning, Yunnan. Built a rural art community, ChuangTzu Academy (桩子学院), and pastoral complex integrating art education, ecological agriculture, and cross-cultural exchange. Core principle: Serving the People. Over the course of two years the project transformed from 桩子 ChuangTzu (body and practice) into 庄子 Zhuangzi (philosophical exploration) — setting the stage for the Maya and Dongba civilization research that followed in 2018–2019. Covered by Chinese media including 中国文旅头条, 云南网, and 春城晚报.
View Project →Jingdezhen Five-Year Retreat
景德镇五年闭关 · Jingdezhen, Jiangxi, China
A planned three-year retreat that extended to five. Mu used the name 梦春山 Meng Chunshan — 'Dreaming Spring Mountain' — during this period. Inside the retreat: the 《瓜子人》(Seed People) series (2014–2019), and the 《山海经心经》(Classic of Mountains and Seas · Heart Sutra) series (2015–2016). Partial exit in 2017 for wheelchair recovery (six months); 2018–2019 Maya and Dongba fieldwork across ten countries overlapped the final phase; the retreat formally concluded in 2019. The deepest ink and sculptural work of the practice was made here, in silence, under a name almost nobody knew.
Ten Years of Silence
十年静默 · Myanmar, China, Thailand, Hungary
A large-scale life performance work completed through ten years of deliberate public silence: no publications, no gallery exhibitions, no commercial or institutional art activity in the name of art. The silence is itself the work — an umbrella over the Jingdezhen retreat, the Myanmar monastery, the ChuangTzu → Zhuangzi Project, and the Maya / Dongba fieldwork. Completed 2022.
View Project →Landscape Dream (Shanshui Meng)
《山水梦》 · China & Thailand
Long-running project taking landscape (山水) as its motif. Launched in 2013, just as the ten-year silence began, and continuing to the present. The slow through-line connecting the Jingdezhen retreat, the return, and the recent ink series — the mountain that keeps being dreamed.
Life as Game
《游戏人间》 · Ongoing — worldwide
A lifelong art project incorporating the whole of existence into art creation. Daily behavior, spiritual practice, and social engagement as creative medium. The core proposition: Life is Art. All subsequent projects exist within this frame.
View Project →Give Myself Away for a Year
《将自己布施出去一年》 · Yunnan, China
One full year: no pay, no art-world activity. Social services, folk labor, public welfare. The body as the only medium. A direct test of whether art could be lived rather than made — and a dismantling of every separation between spiritual practice and secular life.
View Project →Genealogy
《家谱》 · New Zealand & China
In official collaboration with the New Zealand Government. Oral history, image installation, and cross-cultural research connecting Eastern and Western family cultures — exploring how blood, identity, and belonging are expressed across national and cultural borders. The project contributed to the New Zealand government's formal apology to the Chinese community for the historical Poll Tax.
Official collaboration with the New Zealand Government
View Project →Farmer Station
《农民站台》 · Rural Yunnan, China
Rural experimental art project proposing the concept of an Experimental Rural Bauhaus. Rooted in Yunnan villages, transforming rural spaces with art, building a community art education system. The project prompted his adoption of the art name Farmer Mu — a deliberate erasure of the elite-art label.
View Project →An Illusory Character Made in China
《一个制造于中国的虚幻人物》 · Amsterdam, Netherlands
Solo exhibition during the Rijksakademie residency. Conceptual installations and performance documents reflecting on identity construction and the alienation of cultural symbols — the experience of being a Chinese artist making work in Europe.
View Project →Himalaya
《喜马拉雅山》 · Multiple locations, France
In official collaboration with the French Government. Cross-regional installations and film exploring the symbiotic relationship between landscape, culture, and humanity across the Himalayan region. Exhibited across multiple locations in France. The 2005 Binic exhibition was reviewed by Libération, by Edouard Launet.
Official collaboration with the French Government
View Project →Jiang Hu
《江湖》 · Kunming & Lijiang, Yunnan, China
A contemporary art movement Mu both launched and stopped. Large-scale public art project intervening in urban and rural spaces across Kunming and Lijiang. One of the early representative works of socially engaged public art in China. Formally exhibited in Kunming and Lijiang in 2005. Deliberately concluded in 2006.
View Project →Lijiang Studio
丽江工作室 · Lijiang, Yunnan, China
Co-founded with American curator Jay Brown — one of Yunnan's first non-profit international artist residency platforms, connecting Yunnan and Tibet with Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Americas. The 2004 catalogue Lijiang China Studio/Residence was permanently collected by IberLibro and international art platforms. Included in the Rijksakademie's case studies of Chinese contemporary public art. Deliberately closed in 2007.
Co-founded with Jay Brown (American curator)
View Project →20 Days Project
《二十天计划》 · Kunming — Oslo — Amsterdam — Brittany, France
Cross-border public experimental art plan. Kunming (2003) → Oslo (2004) → Amsterdam (2005) → Binic, Brittany (2005). The concept: 20 days, 20 countries. Each day abstractly translated a different country's cultural core through body and local materials — without flags or landmarks, without preset outcomes.
View Project →Killing
《杀》 · Oslo, Norway — Asia Tour
Experimental short film selected for the Asian Experimental Art Film Festival and toured Norway and multiple Asian countries. The work focuses on the essence of life and the nature of violence — the first major completed work after graduating from the Norwegian Royal Academy of Fine Arts.
View Project →Identity
《身份》 · S Ar era Public Art Space, Oslo, Norway
Public art intervention at the S Ar era public art space in Oslo during Mu's second year at the Norwegian Royal Academy of Fine Arts. Part of the earliest body of conceptual and public-art work — an inquiry into identity, displacement, and the self in a foreign language.