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During the early development of the People's Republic of China, major cities were industrialised and historical architecture was severely neglected. The Cultural Revolution (1966-76) provided an extraordinary example of political mobilisation directed against the material and cultural vestiges of the past. During the infamous movement of the Red Guards, China's public properties and cultural relics were attacked and numerous art treasures and artefacts were destroyed. The Open-Door policy beginning in 1978 instigated another 'revolution' – of economic reform and urban transformation. Thirty years of rapid urbanisation have meant that few traditional constructions have survived, and even the buildings and complexes built during the early PRC proved to be transitory, once they had been removed, reconstructed or replaced.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (Wuchan jieji wenhua da geming), from a general understanding, was launched in 1966 by Mao Zedong for his political agenda and ended with his demise in 1976. It has been seen as a watershed, the defining period of the half-century Communist rule in China. Studies on the Cultural Revolution offer more than historical insight, and they are essential for a better understanding of China today. To mark the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) at Birmingham City University convened a two-day international conference hosted at the Whitechapel Gallery in London. This conference, Making the New World: The Arts of China's Cultural Revolution, invited more than twenty contributors including researchers, curators and artists worldwide to discuss the significance of the arts and culture of the Cultural Revolution, and to reflect upon their impacts on everyday experience in China within socio-political, cultural and global contexts. On the basis of the conference contributions, this special issue has been edited through the further development of selected academic papers and conversations.

This conversation, originally conducted in Chinese, explores the role of films, movie theaters, screens, streaming platforms, and documentary filmmaking in China during the initial wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Zhang Zhen and Jiang Jiehong—professors at Tisch School of the Arts, New York University, and Birmingham City University, UK, respectively—discuss the human rights movement prompted by state-sanctioned racist violence, feminist interventions in filmmaking practices, documentation of the pandemic in China, and tensions between state discourse and minjian (unofficial, unaffiliated, grassroots, and among-the-people) narratives.