Living in a cage and not being allowed to talk to anyone might be your idea of a nightmare.

But artist Ye Fu, a Beijing-based poet, is doing just that, for 10 days. He is on display at the Fengshui Exhibition, launched by the Shanghai Zendai Museum of Modern Art on September 4.

The controversial project has already attracted many people who want to see the "prisoner" and some have even volunteered to live in the 4-metre-high and 2-metre-wide cage with him.

One such person is 26-year-old female volunteer, Luo Xianhui, from Beijing.

Last month when she read Ye Fu's advertisement looking for a volunteer, she decided to quit her job and go to Shanghai to help.

The cage is in the Jiujiantang Villa in the Pudong District of Shanghai. Ye entered the cage on September 4 when the exhibition began.

The plan is that he and Luo live in the cage for 10 days. In that time, they cannot talk to anyone nor change clothes. There is a white cloth hanging in the cage so they go to the toilet behind it.

Every day, food, mostly vegetables, is sent to the artist and Luo, Ye collects any rubbish and stores it in a black plastic bag which is taken away each day.

The two in the cage not only don't talk to others, they don't talk to each other.

But every day they write on the wooden cage. The artist said it is the only means of communication for them.

It is not the first time Ye has been involved in such a project. In April 2005, he built a large "bird nest" in Jian Wai SOHO in Beijing and lived in it for a month. Many people considered the project "abnormal."

Huang Yan, the curator of the current exhibition, praised Ye's new scheme.

"His project is a good illustration for modern people's lives - many people live in "cages" and have no real communication with one another. Now, many artists like to have exhibitions or display their work in galleries or museums. But not everyone has the chance to enter a museum or gallery."

Huang added: "Ye's project is a good effort; his work is outside, so everyone can watch his project if they like. I think most people who have seen it understand what the artist wants to convey."

After Shanghai, Ye will go to Qingdao for his next project-living with a lion cub in a cage for 10 days. According to the artist, it will be an even more challenging project for him.

(China Daily September 8, 2006)