Art Spaces in the City

I am interested in how artists are finding ways to make and show their work in Beijing despite the continuing increases in the cost of renting space and pressures of the art market. I came across this article in e-flux that talks about alternative art spaces in China. I have been surprised by the number of interesting and often spontaneous conversations that go on around the city which in the past I only experienced within institutions (such as graduate seminars in the US). I may be learning from a group of people gathered to discuss a reading or from a random conversation with one of the many art students I pass on the street. My one frustration at the moment is there seems to be a disconnect between the depth of the conversations I have on a daily basis with the actual making of physical work. Perhaps this is because school has been closed for the new year holiday or maybe it is in part because of the difficulty of finding actual space to make work outside of the school studios or maybe it is that there is some sort of divide between the intellectual and physical work people are doing. I think I will need to be here longer to begin to understand.