Art Saves Ecology
From Ink Painting to Ecological Restoration: Zhu Renmin's Studio and Land Art
From the Chinese tradition of ink Shanshui painting to ecological restoration, Chinese artist Zhu Renmin embarked on a crusade to save modern China’s landscape over the past 3 decades, by applying his unique art-based approach. Zhu puts his experience and mastery of literature, painting, sculpture, and calligraphy at the service of saving the environment, cultural heritage and spiritual awareness of our time. As Shanshui Ink Painting allows one to experience landscapes to find human's unity with nature, Zhu turns to architecture and landscape design as an ultimate form to practice his art and philosophy and made significant impact on the built environment and urban planning in modern China, completing nearly RMB 100 billion worth of restoration projects. Zhu moved art out of the ivory tower so that the public may enjoy and use it. He brought traditional Chinese painting into the contemporary period and expanded its use to design plans and architectural projects.
As a pioneer and early practitioner in the eco-landscape design field, Zhu Renmin is the director of the Research Center for Ecological Restoration at Zhejiang University. He was dean and research director of the Landscape and Architecture Design Institute at the China Academy of Art in the 1990’s. Born in the coastal province of Zhejiang as the grandson of Pan Tianshou, Zhu Renmin has won China’s highest awards for artistic achievement and international awards for green design. As a pioneer and early practitioner in the eco-landscape design field, in the 1980s Zhu started to build the discipline of Human Ecological Restoration, pioneering the aesthetic concepts of “saving the environment through art” and the theory of “spiritual, natural, and cultural ecologies.” For over three decades, Zhu has toiled to rehabilitate the most forsaken of landscapes destroyed by man: barren beaches, deserted islands, denuded cliffs, polluted canals, even the Yellow River.
VISITOR INFORMATION: Oshman Hall is located in the McMurtry Building on Stanford’s campus, at 355 Roth Way. Visitor parking is free after 4pm on weekdays, except by the oval. Alternatively, take the Caltrain to Palo Alto Transit Center and hop on the free Stanford Marguerite Shuttle.
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