Park designed for statues of famous locals

BEISHAN Village in Nanping Town, where the Yang Family Shrine is located, will see work on the 18,200sqm Historic Zhuhai Figures Statue Park begin this month, according to a local official.
Zhanhong Real Estate Co Ltd has invested 6 million yuan ($857,000) in the park. Statues of 21 historic figures from Zhuhai will include Yung Wing, forefather of Chinese overseas study and initiator of the Chinese Educational Mission (CEM) in the Qing Dynasty; Chun Afong, the first Chinese consul and millionaire in Hawaii; Tang Shaoyi, the first premier of the Republic of China; Tang Tingshu, renowned comprador and industrialist in modern China; and Su Zhaozheng, leader of the early Communist Party of China. The park is expected to promote and preserve local cultural heritage and thus boost economic growth, a government official said.
Each bronze statue of 1.8 or 1.9m with a 0.8m base, bears brief introduction up front and the name of the business sponsor on the back, Huang Linlin, director of the Xiangzhou Cultural Centre, noted.
The statues were completed by the end of last year. Industry insiders point out that the significance of the statue park lies not only in a scenic spot, but rather the soul of the city.
It took six years to prepare the statue park, Huang said. The idea of creating the park can be traced back to 2003 when a sculptor from the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts was commissioned to conduct preliminary designs, she recalled. The first document that can be found is minutes of the Standing Committee of Xiangzhou District CPC Party Committee in March 2004. It says: “Importance should be attached to constructing the Statue Park” The Xiangzhou District Publicity Department met to discuss the issue late April. A consensus on the name of the park, Historic Zhuhai Figures Statue Park; designer and sculptor, Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts; and investment mode, from the fiscal budget and business subscription, was reached at the meeting, Huang said.
The park will be located outside the Yang Family Shrine, a cultural relics site under city-level protection as of 1986. Built in 1868, the shrine is five rooms wide and three rooms deep with nave, main hall, reception hall, yard, wing-rooms, corridor and a performance platform. Featuring stone carving, brick carving, woodcarving and lime carving decorations, the shrine is typical of Lingnan architecture.
Land acquisition for the park was completed in 2004, however, preparation for the construction started only in 2007. Last month, an agreement on co-developing the park was reached between Nanping Town government, Beishan Village Industrial Co Ltd and Zhanhong Real Estate.
Zhuo Guosen, a teacher at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, began to design the statues in 2003. It took nearly five years to research, design and sculpt the figures, he said. More than a dozen processes such as sketching, sculpting clay of 30cm, and then 60cm and 80cm tall while refining the character before the final casting, are needed for a sculpture, he explained.
The most difficult was character design though, Zhuo noted. Most historic figures had left photographs, but not every one. What impressed him most was Bao Jun, a renowned calligrapher and gifted scholar in the Qing Dynasty, who left behind no pictures or portraits except some rock carvings of calligraphy and his former residence. Zhuo had to create an image using historic documents. When a calligrapher leaning on a rock and writing with a brush pen in his hand was sculpted, experts nodded their approval. It makes the image of Bao the most difficult and also the easiest to be shaped without his picture, Zhuo said, adding: “The sculptor can let his imagination run wild.”
Sponsors, at 100,000 yuan each, for five of the statues are being sought by the city Department of Culture. Current sponsors include the Gree Group, Zhuhai Power Group and Bank of Communications Zhuhai Branch.