Peng and Sun believe their collaboration with the Anhui farmers perfectly suits the theme of China's inaugural pavilion, Virgin Garden: Emersion, at the 51st Biennale di Venezia.

'It is the first time China has its own pavilion at the biennale and we don't know what the outcome or reaction will be from the international community,' Sun says. 'This is similar to the saucer the peasants are testing in Venice, they don't know if it will fly or if it won't.'

Although this is the first year of formal mainland participation, over the past 10 years, the Venice Biennale has honoured and exhibited the work of many mainland artists. In 1999, Cai Guoqiang was awarded the biennale's highest honour, the Golden Lion, for his installation work entitled Venice's Rent Collection Courtyard. That same year, the late Harald Szeemann's exhibition, APERTO Over All, launched a Chinese coup d'etat with its presentation of nearly 20 mainland artists.

Cai, who is curator of this year's show, believes that the realisation of a formal pavilion in the summer of 2003 was thwarted by a one-two punch of Sars and a sense that 'the biennale office did not see enough commitment on China's end'.

While Cai acknowledges the hard work on the part of the Chinese culture and foreign ministries this time around, he gives some of the credit for China's formal participation to the global obsession with all things Chinese.

'The Venice Biennale now offers us more support because there is generally more interest in Chinese art,' Cai says. 'China itself is seen as an upcoming power, and everyone wants to forge a closer alliance with it.'

However, the Chinese Pavilion faces some challenges, not least of which is its lack of permanent structure or even a locale for a future home. Cai says the site China will exhibit on this year is less than ideal in both its fung shui orientation and geographic location.

'You have to walk over 500 metres to get to the current site of the China Pavilion,' he says. 'By that time, visitors will have seen hundreds of artists and installations and so we had to think about what kind of work could engage them and catch their attention.'

Two young artists, Shanghai-based Xu Zhen and Beijing artist Liu Wei, were called upon this year for their ability to excite the senses and garner attention. Liu captures the manic pace of contemporary urban Chinese life with his indoor motion-activated light installation entitled Star. When viewers enter the gallery, rhythmically timed blinding flashes of white light attack their sight, momentarily altering their perception of space and time.

Xu's video installation named Shout will likely be the last work that biennale-goers see during their trek around the Arsenale. The work depicts a busy pedestrian conduit in one of China's major cities. The idea is, like the rabble in the video, visitors to the China Pavilion will be struck by a sudden and voluble shout, which causes the crowd to turn suddenly in the direction of the noise before they slowly return to their lives and continue on their path.

Chang Yungho, contributing artist to the China Pavilion and principal of one of the mainland's leading architecture firms Atelier Feichang Jianzhu, matches the interior space containing Xu and Liu's work with a fluid design for a gazebo-like exterior.

It might seem odd for the Venice Art Biennale to include the work of an architect, given that Venice also hosts a separate Architecture Biennale in which Chang's office participated in 2000 and 2002. However, Chang shrugs off this suggestion. 'I think the selection of an architect to show at an art biennale reflects a very mature approach to modern art and contemporary culture.'

He says that in the future, he would like to see more co-operation between Venice's art and architecture biennales.

Cai wants to push the structure of the biennale even further by questioning the very form of national representation.

'I feel that the previous model of building a pavilion, that is one where you commission a famous architect to build a permanent building that reflects a national style or political ideology, is a thing of the past,' Cai says.

He calls for a more mutable model and a freer space, perhaps just a simple platform where the artists interact more naturally with the given location.

China, or at least its diaspora, will also leave its mark this year with the work of Qingtian native, Jun Yang, who now lives in Vienna, Austria. Jun is known for performance art that reflects current events.

Although not a member showing with the Chinese Pavilion, Jun will present work from the art world's heavy hitters, such as Gabriel Orozco of Mexico and Philip Guston of Canada, under Italy's International Pavilion, a major achievement for any artist.

China's success this year and its future at Venice hinges not only on ongoing support from Italy's biennale organisers and the pavilion's reception by international visitors, but also from the central government.

In order to ensure China's continued involvement in the Venice Biennale, Cai emphasises the need for a so-called insider such as Fan Di'an, this year's China Pavilion commissioner and vice-president of the Central Academy of Fine Art in Beijing. In a statement, Fan writes that the 'pavilion will present to the world a different face of Chinese contemporary art, addressing and ultimately modifying prevailing stereotypes'.

However, the question arises as to whether the addition of a bamboo structure and the contribution of fung shui master Wang Qiheng will help the pavilion succeed in challenging prevailing stereotypes.

The element that might actually be unexpected, and perhaps missed, this year is the seeming lack of a political agenda in the works presented by China. Some might see what the mainlanders are offering - which no doubt have been heavily censored - blend the boring with the unchallenging.

Jennifer Wen Ma from Cai's office sums up the rationale behind what seems an almost decidedly non-political stance. 'China's national pavilion serves not only as a way to get attention and foreign press, but also as a demonstration that China is no longer the enemy of contemporary art and culture,' she says. 'No longer can artists simply use political oppression as a subject matter. You have to ask more critically: 'what makes good art?''

Some might view this change as a critical turning point for Chinese art culture, one that frees artists from expectations of focusing on weighty political issues, thereby allowing them to concentrate on more fundamental questions of artistic expression and aesthetic values.

Chang also embraces that creative shift away from often gratuitous politically minded work, as seen in the 1980s and 90s. 'What's interesting to me is that the work of many of those political pop artists was not really politically charged work at all,' he says. 'A lot of the inspiration came from the market rather than politics.'

However, Chang cautions against the pendulum swinging too far in the other direction. 'Now there is a genuine disinterest in politics, some artists have even become hedonistic,' he says. 'For the time being, it seems that the whole Chinese society is focusing on the pleasures of all earthly delights, but we should be more critical of that.

'I find the total lack of discussion on political or social issues these days a bit troublesome.'

Lest you think that the mainland's influence at Venice is entirely devoid of a political agenda, you need only look to representatives from Taiwan.

According to Jason Wang Chia-chi, chief curator for Taiwanese artists showing at Venice, the mainland - in a gesture similar to blocking Taiwan's entrance to the World Trade Organisation - has made great efforts to hinder Taiwan's formal inclusion in major art events such as Venice.

'Internationally we see that the Chinese government will use all kinds of means to pose a threat towards Taiwan, often warning the biennale about the right of representation,' Wang says. 'For example, during the Sao Paolo Biennale, China pressured the organisers to note that Taiwanese artists could only represent themselves and not Taiwan. For Taiwan to participate in the Venice Biennale, we cannot stand for Taiwan, we can only participate on behalf of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum. To Taiwanese artists, this is an insult.'

China's entrance as a player at Venice indeed heralds its entrance onto the international arts stage, but some artists, including Sun, worry about the effect that the mainstreaming of art will have on China in the long run.

'Mainland Chinese modern art used to be underground, but now it is internationalised and overground,' Sun says. 'Chinese artists now attend international exhibitions and their works keep growing in value. The change is fast and obvious, but artists should not be blindly optimistic ... you have to keep asking what problems your work has and labour hard to resolve them.'

When asked about his plans for after the biennale, Chang rattles off a long list of projects in the works. His tight schedule will have him travelling to speak on museology at Art Basel in mid-June, all before he assumes his post as MIT's head of architecture in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So whatever threats to China's artistic energy might loom on the horizon, China's creative industries have matured enough not only to capture the world's imagination, but also to allow artists to emerge as equal players in global culture rather than remain exotic novelties.

Whether they will succeed in doing so, of course, is another question.