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Rapid modernization has brought about massive changes in the urban and rural landscapes of China. While many old places and ancient buildings have been pulled down and replaced with more modern alternatives, others have been protected and restored. These include ancient ancestral temples, an important cultural space in China. Previous research has shown how different level governments and rural communities work together to restore ancient temples, but didn’t bring to light artistic and non-government financed and patronized cases of restoration projects. This article adopts a bottom-up perspective to examine a case in Guangzhou how an individual artist transforms an ancient ancestral temple into a new cultural space. Through an ethnographic-style exploration of the practice of restoration, we unfold the interconnections between an individual’s social memory of the past, their love of place, and their enthusiasm for restoration work. Differing from the government’s ‘standardized’ and functionalist restoration of ancestral temples, this case study shows an individual’s emotional and material devotion to transforming a neglected ancestral temple into an eclectic cultural space where the art works are a result of freedom of creative expression.

Restoration of an ancestral temple in Guangzhou, China: re-imagining history and traditions through devotion to art and creation