Art gives hutong a sense of community

"We must address the questions, including how to deal with the elderly, how to enhance their sense of well-being, what we can do that is unique, and what we can provide the elderly with. We chose localization. I have never worked with so many old people, so I started getting to know them. It's also an opportunity to expand my cognition," Niu says.

The team members then worked to make friends with the locals, letting them know that they were new members of the community, and learned from the experience of the neighborhood committee in having effective communication with the residents.

The center then started to provide cultural activities that would cater to the interests of the locals, and answer the practical needs of the residents, from solving the tiniest problems of living in a hutong, to enriching their everyday lives.

Apart from offering venues to the community's existing hobby groups, the center also aims to host innovative activities attended by both young and old people, such as retro dance parties, natural dyeing and coffee art workshops.

She says that, since its launch, the team has hosted more than 3,100 events, about 300 of which were originated by the team itself, and have been attended by more than 30,000 people each year.

In these projects, young participants usually account for around 50 percent, sometimes approaching 70 percent. While the figures prove the achievements of the team in reintroducing young people to the local community, the team aims to keep control of the demographics and maintain a balance between young and old participants.

In 2018, the center hosted the first edition of When I ... Just Like You, an experimental public art project that sought to build a platform that connects and integrates the younger generation with senior residents.

The project gathered a dozen of senior residents, aged up to 85, and a dozen young people, the youngest being 24, from all walks of life, and paired them with one another. The young people were assigned to take the elderly on a "date", that is any activity they find interesting, and the old people were told to bring to their young friends attire they wore at a younger age.