Li continued to question the ownership and management of public land in One Night in the Fishery (2012), in which he camped overnight on a lot designated for a five-star hotel. Hanging from Mana Contemporary’s ceiling, an enlarged photograph of the artist silhouetted against the lake at sunset documents the performance. Another performance that revisits the matter of commercialization, East Lake Central Hotel (2014), welcomed visitors to an informal lodge that the artist had set up in a lakeside cabin he believed to be unoccupied. There, he provided guests with a guidebook and hammock, as well as two other items—a broom and mosquito net—that were included in the exhibition. The government later shut down the site, not knowing that the cabin was actually utilized by the cleaning crew that took care of the lake.

The artist also devised an elaborate scavenger hunt called Living RPG Game: East Lake Legend (2014). Li posted the game’s rules online, along with clues pointing players to specific locations around the lake. A handful of these clues, written in the style of a detective story, hung in one of the rooms at Mana Contemporary, while red string linked to the corresponding answers on an opposite wall of a second room. Some clues and answers were also integrated into other works on display, calling back to the real locales they directed players to. Li designed to game as a way to encourage local citizens to explore every corner of the lake, including more secluded sections that had been marked for use by the government and private companies. Again, he wanted to underline the loss of public space. Upon returning to the lake a couple years later, Li recalled that he came upon one of his old answers, attached to a bench; apparently, none of the participants had found that one.

At the center of “Zi Jie at East Lake,” red signs framing the doorway between the two rooms that house the exhibition commemorate the performance and installation Dragon Temple of East Lake (2015). Li, who grew up Guangxi province, where he practiced a daily ritual of worshipping many gods, erected a temple adjacent to the lake as a monument to his spiritual upbringing, which doubled as a place for quiet reflection. An accompanying graphic novel on display details the process and rationale through illustrations and photographic documentation. Eventually, he witnessed locals in Wuhan accepting the temple as their own and paying homage to the dragon god imported from his home culture. The structure not only offers a spiritual backdrop, but also represents a disruptive space—autonomous from and positioned against capitalism, according to Li. The rise and disappearance of the artist’s works seem to imitate that of the lake itself, in the heart of land being claimed and reclaimed in an ongoing struggle between people and profits.