Nika Dubrovsky in conversation with Tang Haoduo and Dr. Yan Zhou
I have always been fascinated by China, especially because I grew up in the USSR, where the relationship with China swung between absolute admiration, manifest in the Chinese pillows and bedspreads decorating my grandparents’ bedroom, to complete silence about the country, where according to rumors the rulers were mad.
Today, for those of us living in the West, we hear nothing but constant hints of the Chinese threat and competition. So I was incredibly excited when one day I received an invitation on social media to participate in a children’s festival in China, prompted by a project called Anthropology for Kids that I organized years go with David Graeber. Having no idea what awaited me, this summer I traveled to the Kindergarten Without Walls festival, held in a small, impoverished neighborhood in the southern tourist city of Haikou.
Taking place literally “in the cracks in the system,” in a small (former) shop in Haikou, an incredibly diverse group of people—from businessmen to teachers, Chinese hipsters, students, academics, and local residents—gathered to organize thirty (!) different activities with local children. It had been a long time since I had experienced such a diverse crowd: rich and poor, locals and foreigners, come together to create a genuine celebration of freedom and care. It was such an honor to be part of it.
I was completely blown away by what I saw! It looked both very familiar and completely unexpected. The grassroots-organized festival brought together people from various countries, different social backgrounds, and of all ages. There was no clear organization, administration, or office. The only exception was Tang Haoduo, one of the originators of the project, an artist and founder of Kindergarten Without Walls, who kept popping up in the most unexpected places, helping everyone—although I never saw him giving orders or instructions.
Everything happened spontaneously: volunteers mixed with participants, artists with children, and kids from poor areas with children from wealthier backgrounds. An endless stream of workshops, processions, poetry readings, and discussions flowed so naturally that it was impossible to attend everything or even keep track of it all (even though there was a detailed printed schedule in two languages describing all the events).
Why did Haikou, of all places, succeed in creating such an amazing space like Kindergarten Without Walls?
Some said it wasn’t possible in other industrial cities because people are too busy, life is expensive, and breaking away from the stressful office life to do something outside the rigid survival and career-growth schedules seems unrealistic.
At the same time, everything depends on the specific people who started this project and continue to make efforts to help it grow. The festival has been running for several years now, and it grows bigger every year.
I especially treasure two projects.
One I called a “guerrilla playground” for its similarity to the “guerrilla gardens” that city residents create on their own. It was installed in a small space between a school wall and a row of very poor, densely populated apartment buildings next to a garbage dump.
The playground was extraordinarily well made, having withstood a recent typhoon. It simulated training for astronauts, with a collective merry-go-round driven exclusively by children, along with a few other no less fascinating objects. Everything was unique and specially made for the festival by its creators—Melon Ding и Beca Liu,—with money from friends, who simply wanted to pay for something wonderful. Also amazing was the devotion of the creators, who in the 30 degree heat guided everyone who wanted to use this small amusement park from early morning to late evening absolutely free of charge. Melon is an engineer at an airplane company and Becca is an artist and designer.
The second project was led by artist and architect Xu Zhiqiang, who, rather than creating something himself for the festival, decided to design furniture in collaboration with the children. The result was a collection of incredible pieces that children, no matter where they came from, would surely enjoy.
Imagine school desks that at the same time are racing cars, or school chairs that are also perfect for taking a nap? The minimalist design allowed these objects to be made on the spot, and the narrow street—the only public space in this neighborhood—was filled with kids organizing chair races.
The festival exhibition displayed the children’s furniture sketches alongside the artist’s technical drawings. Each piece was accompanied by a photo and the name of the child who designed it, with the proud creators often standing nearby, eager to explain their creative ideas.
For my contribution to the festival, I introduced a project that David and I called Visual Assembly, asking children to draw and describe two cities, one utopian and the other a disaster. I brought with me many stickers representing buildings imagined for utopian cities, with scary and funny machines, and people dancing or dressed up in strange clothes, as well as large sheets of paper with zones marked off for everyone to start drawing from his or her side of the board, sooner or later “meeting up” with a co-author arriving from the other side, initiating a discussion of the overall plan of the city. The project involved not only children but adults, too: parents, artists, and other festival guests. It seemed to me that Visual Assembly fit the general spirit of the festival, where there was no need to teach anyone anything, where equal dialog was encouraged, where everyone came to learn and help each other.
Binlian New Village, where the festival took place, is a very poor urban neighborhood in Haikou, essentially a slum. Ten years ago there were around a hundred areas like this one in Haikou, but now only about twenty remain.
I wanted to ask two organizers—Tang Haoduo, whom we met briefly above and to whom we owe the existence of this magical place, and Dr. Yan Zhou, a Canadian curator who became actively involved in its work, to tell more about the festival.
Nika: How did it all start?
Tang Haoduo: In 2017 I arrived at Binlian New Village, an urban village in Haikou. The place was full of vigor and liveliness, and I was immediately taken in by its atmosphere. I decided to put down roots here and commit myself to long-term community development. I founded the Banban Grocery Store, and one day an eight-year-old girl named Moon came in. She came from a traumatic background, neglected due to her family situation and gender. Moon’s story became the catalyst for the project, which led to the creation of Moon’s Education Plan, a long-term initiative supporting her development into adulthood. Over time, more children joined the program, and it evolved into a broader, non-hierarchical platform where children and adults collaborate equally, focusing on creativity and mutual care rather than formal education. We called it Kindergarten Without Walls.
Nika: What would you say is the key reason behind your work?
Tang Haoduo: I believe it is a response to the challenges faced by migrant children in China, who often struggle with social barriers and a lack of resources. Although the children in this community live in the city, most families’ economic situation is not good, and the area in which they live is limited to a diameter of less than three kilometers. They are rarely seen in supermarkets, amusement parks, video game arcades, libraries, luxury restaurants, or cinemas. Moon’s mother told me that they had never been to a cinema. They don’t have the option of attending classes that interest them or tutoring classes, or make travel plans the way children in the city do on weekends and holidays. Migrant children are wilder and have stronger survival skills compared to urban children, but their material and social conditions are meager. They cannot compete with urban children in exams and have fewer opportunities to get into high school and university. They live in the city, but they seem to be isolated from the city.
Nika: How would you compare the lives of other kids in the city? Are they doing any better?
Tang Haoduo: On the other hand, the life of urban children is also not easy. Their lives are overwhelmingly planned and arranged by their parents, and they are deprived of autonomy. Having one or two art skills and playing sports and knowing some English is now the standard requirement for children from urban middle-class families, and all of these are obtained mostly through the power of money. I see that many urban children are not happy, and they lose their childhood vitality early on. Most of the children who seek psychological counseling come from families with backgrounds like teachers, civil servants, doctors, and businessmen. We see that both migrant children and urban children face difficulties. They also have to face many problems such as too much schoolwork, lack of sleep, poor eyesight, poor physical fitness, a sense of emptiness, and psychological depression.
This is the context in which the Kindergarten Without Walls practices. For five years, we did not rely on much outside support, instead, insisting on low-cost operations and the spontaneous mutual assistance from the locals. We connected people of different professions and identities from China and abroad, who come to the community from time to time, bringing rich and cutting-edge art and educational activities to the children. We broke down social-class barriers, rejecting social prejudices, connecting people, and allowing children from different family backgrounds to meet here and help each other.
Kindergarten Without Walls provides a space where children are free to express themselves and build relationships. It is also a model for grassroots direct action, promoting the idea that community and creativity are powerful tools for social change.
Nika: You’re an adult whose work centers around childhood. How do you see the relationship between children and adults and what would you like to change?
Tang Haoduo: I think that in China adults don’t understand the world of children, just like children don’t know the many secrets of the adult world, because the world is centered on adults. If we could build an equal relationship with children, we would understand each other better. When adults have more understanding of the realities and difficulties children encounter in their world, they will understand and support children more. On this basis, we insist on practicing from the perspective of children. For example, we listened to the advice of Chen Xianbo (eleven years old) to hold the art festival in the summer, and the advice of Zhang Shihan (ten years old) to manage the space of the Kindergarten Without Walls together with other children. At the same time, we have an inclusive and open attitude, making ourselves a container for more things to grow here.
I also want to ask Zhou Yan a couple of questions.
Nika: How do you see the role of informal communities, including art communities, in the changes that are currently taking place in China?
Zhou Yan: I believe that the story of the Kindergarten Without Walls and the children’s art festival is a story of kindness, building an egalitarian world of children and people, of affectionate solidarity of close and distant communities. Socially engaged and activist art in China have promoted many important issues in solidarity with world communities, in particular, the #MeToo movement, leftist legacies, and Global South solidarities, among others.
Nika: Are there major differences between China and the rest of the world in relation to childhood and education?
Zhou Yan: In today’s world, whether in the West or China, education, art, entertainment, and life have largely become institutionalized. Though they may look different, they follow the same logic of hopeless social Darwinist competition. Children and students face constant competition and are disciplined from an early age.
The Kindergarten Without Walls challenges us to ask whether we are still capable of creating a world in which children can play, imagine, and be valued and respected as the source and heart of a better humanity.