Ou Ning has been a central figure in the transformation of independent Chinese documentary from a marginalised, underground practice in the 1990s to the more public culture of the digital era. As a filmmaker, writer, curator, designer and archivist, Ou is something of a renaissance figure whose work has always been explicitly concerned with both addressing and helping to constitute a new kind of socially engaged public actively engaged in both the production and circulation of culture. As such, his work provides an ideal lens through which to focus on the strong participatory ethos running through China's independent documentary world and its impact on the kinds of films being made.

This chapter will trace Ou's involvement with independent screen culture, beginning with the formation of the screening group U-thèque (Yuan ying hui) in Shenzhen, southern China, in 1999. This group evolved into a filmmaking collective that produced the documentary San Yuan Li for the Venice Biennale in 2003. Ou then drew on the participatory approach to filmmaking he developed with U-thèque to make the classic documentary Meishi Street (Meishi Jie, 2006), an attempt to provide a space on screen for the views and experiences of a Beijing community through the direct participation of a community member in the filmmaking process. Ou has since attempted to extend his early work, forging an alternative public sphere of viewer-producers into longer-term initiatives through his curatorial activities and the Bishan Commune project. The final part of this chapter will place Ou's work in a wider context by considering other participatory initiatives currently playing out in China's independent documen¬tary world.

U-thèque: Screening Group, Training Centre and Production Collective

When Sichuan's Emei Film Studio approached Ou Ning to design their magazine Filmmaking (Dianying zuopin, later renamed Cineaste) in 1999, Ou was dismayed by the publication's exclusively mainstream focus. Recognising a chance to promote the underground independent filmmaking he knew had been devel¬oping in China throughout the 1990s, Ou persuaded the publishers to bring in documentarian Wu Wenguang to provide some edgier content. Ou had already contracted a strong dose of cinephilia under the influence of the pirate video discs that had circulated through mainland Chinese cities from the mid-1990s. Inspired by the experience of working with Wu on the magazine, Ou decided to establish a screening group to share his extensive collection of discs.