[2] It was formed in 1993 when a group of like-minded artists took up residence together in a "village" of low-quality migrant worker housing,[3] fixing at the entrance a handwritten sign.
Only the year after its founding, following the arrest of Ma Liuming for cooking naked in a courtyard, the community was closed by the police,[3] though former residents continued to collaborate.
[5] They had come to Beijing from different provinces:[3] Ma Liuming, for example, was from Huangshi (Hubei), Zhang Huan from Anyang (Henan), Cang Xin from Baotou (Inner Mongolia), Duan Yingmei from Daqing (Heilongjiang).
In China, however, artistic practice has often been undertaken within the realm of a community of individuals bound by a precise common trait, be it of a political, social or creative nature.
[1] In 1995, after the community had been disbanded, many of the Beijing East Village artists collaborated on the performance To Add One Meter to an Anonymous Mountain in Mentougou District, including Wang Shihua, Cang Xin, Gao Yang, Zuoxiao Zuzhou, Ma Zongyin, Zhang Huan, Ma Liuming, Zhang Binbin and Zhu Ming.