Timeless Beacon - Ma Yansong’s new work brings a sense of rebirth to an abandoned market

Read more: Ma Yansong was invited by Guangdong Nanhai Art Field to complete an art installation named “Timeless Beacon” in Taiping Xu, Nanhai, Guangdong province of China. The design renovated Taiping market, known as the largest abandoned building in Taiping Xu, a once bustling fair established in the late Ming Dynasty and and flourished for centuries until the 1980s when fishermen, businessmen, and villagers gathered there for trading. However, the onset of an urbanization boom changed everything, gradually pushing young people to seek opportunities outside the village. Meanwhile, the internet era began overshadowing the need for physical markets, leading to a slow abandonment of the formerly buzzing fair. On the side of Taiping’s deserted streets, concrete houses occasionally interspersed with old brick buildings emerge. There, a couple of elderly residents sit at thei