British pair recruit North Koreans to paint Beijing as a socialist utopia

There can be no doubt that modern China owes its rise to the reforms of Deng Xiaoping and his successors. But what if, by some twist of fate, the country had reached the same level of development by following the road of Mao Zedong, and what would such a China look like today?

Three years ago, a pair of British expats, long-time residents of Beijing with an interest in socialist art and icons, explored an artistic experiment in how a socialist China might look.

Dominic Johnson-Hill, a designer, and Nick Bonner arrived in China in the early 1990s and immediately fell in love with the capital.

Both men are avid collectors of socialist art and icons, and recognised the potential of interpreting, on canvas, a Chinese socialist utopia with North Korean characteristics. They sketched some ideas and gathered photos of Beijing's most striking modern buildings, which Bonner took to Pyongyang. There he obtained permission to commission local official artists to complete the paintings. The government department that organised the deal was paid €300 (HK$3,150) for each painting.

The result was The Beautiful Future, a collection of six works depicting Beijing architectural landmarks - including the China Central Television headquarters, the "Water Cube" National Aquatics Centre and the "Bird's Nest" National Stadium - juxtaposed with revolutionary themes by the North Korean artists.

The exhibition, staged during Beijing Design Week last October, earned warm reviews in overseas publications including The Guardian and even Business Insider, which described the paintings as "incredible".