For years, Beijing’s art scene largely resided in the capital’s suburbs like 798 or Songzhuang. But recently an increasing number of art collectives, groups and initiatives are cultivating a vibrant scene that's helping change the face of contemporary art in Beijing by fostering creativity and spontaneity inside the ring roads.

"Chinese contemporary art is a gallery- and commercial-based environment," says Ma Yongfeng, co-founder of the art collective Forget Art. They made waves last year by transforming a Caochangdi public bath house into an art project, with various artists creating works to put in the bath house, or transforming aspects of the bath house itself. Ma's piece was an mp3 placed inside a hair dryer, recreating the noise of the dryer without the wind. The growth of these groups is a reaction of young artists against the constraints of the more established contemporary art world in China, says Ma. They want to create art for the sake of art, instead of for cash.

Some of these new groups have physical spaces to operate in, such as HomeShop, just south of the Confucius Temple on Guozijian, or Zajia Lab, north of the Drum and Bell Towers. But in reality they are more integrative and community-based than traditional gallery spaces. HomeShop rents out work stations to artists, hosts a small library open to the public, and prints its own newspaper, while Zajia provides space for jam sessions, video installations and project planning, a small bar, and a base for performance events. Our favorite was a recent one where two artists walked from the Drum Tower to Zajia at such a slow pace that the stroll took four hours to complete.

The most well known of these collectives is Arrow Factory, based out of a small shopfront just off Wudaoying Hutong. The group recently released 3 Years: Arrow Factory, a book that details their many projects, available at Timezone 8 in 798.

"We are just artists. We're not curators or critics," says Ma. "We have events everywhere. Without a fixed space, we can be more guerrilla. It's more free."