ART College lecturer Lee Hassall has returned from Beijing where he was selected to participate in the Dashanzi International art festival.

His work included film, a series of walks and sculpture and was exhibited at the 798 factory - built by the Russians at the time of the Cultural Revolution.

The area, while still containing working factories, now plays host to the Chinese capital's burgeoning contemporary art scene.

Lee made a series of works linking his own past with that of the spaces in which the works were shown - a psychological, social and political response to being in China.

Inspired by his own experience of learning Morris dancing while at school, and those of a friend who worked at the Rolls Royce engineering factory, Lee explored what splitting means in 21st century society and expressed that union of industry and art.

He walked through factories dressed in black, giving rise to reactions including agitation and curiosity.

"It was enough that I was a tall Western man, without being blacked up," he said.

Lee was one of four artists from the region who went to Beijing, funded through the Arts Council and in part by Trace Gallery, Cardiff, where he has presented installation work.

"Beijing is a place full of contradiction, of burgeoning capitalisation within a communist framework," Lee said. "There is a lot of building going on with old dwellings being cleared to make way for the Olympics.

"Scaffolding is very poor and men die every week."

He found the trip both fascinating and disturbing.

"I didn't know what to expect until I got out there but I met lots of interesting Chinese artists, which has inevitably fed back into teaching practice."