Water town dreams of being art hub

The Inverted Panorama House, Liu Jianhua's installation Standards[Photo provided to China Daily]

"I was touched by the culture and history here. Women in Wuzhen have wisdom and knowledge in their hands. They can weave and do things I can't do," says Hamilton.

Her trip to Wuzhen is the first time the famous American artist has visited China. After arriving in Wuzhen she went knocking on locals' doors seeking old sweaters to get thread for her installation.

"They're good at undoing sweaters. They taught me how to do it. Very interesting," she says.

Hamilton's works often comprise thread and textiles, as she is interested in sewing and weaving.

She also wants locals to use her loom installation to weave cloth. When the show ends on June 26, the installation will be taken away and all that will be left behind is a piece of cloth that was woven.

Besides Hamilton's work, there are six installations in the water town, including Florentijn Hofman's pink floating fish and Cheng Zhiguang's herds of ants.

John Kormeling's "manhole cover" has drawn visitors to play with it and dance with it. Some children even performed martial arts with it.

There are altogether 13 works customized for the show in Wuzhen.

Many of the participating artists say Wuzhen is like a utopia, which echoes the title of the exhibition Utopias Heterotopias. They say that visiting the water town is like going back in time with ancient buildings all around.

Meanwhile, Chinese artist Xu Bing's works, together with most of the exhibits, are being shown in a factory area. Xu's latest work is Dragonfly Eyes, an 80-minute film made without an actor and a cameraman. The film is made using surveillance videos posted online.