Amid the “holy mountains” of Mount Everest, Arc’teryx and acclaimed Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang staged a fireworks display that sought to honor Mother Nature and communicate with the wider universe. But the spectacle quickly backfired, quickly unraveling into a public relations crisis for both Cai and the Anta-owned outdoor brand.

To bring to life a work initially conceived more than 35 years ago, the 67-year-old Cai — known for works that use gunpowder and fireworks to explore themes such as spirituality, his Chinese identity and creative destruction — spent almost a week in the small Tibetan village of Relong, which is a part of a region dubbed the “hometown of Mount Everest.”

It was the first time the artist worked with mountainous terrain for this installation, which went up to a heady 5,000-meter altitude.

“My intent is to co-create with nature, when the artwork leaves the hands of the artist, nature imbues it with magic and an uncanny craftsmanship,” Cai said during a media scrum after the 30-minute showcase.

Fighting altitude sickness, sunburn, rain and hail, Cai and his fireworks team spent more than a week setting up the explosion trails — aided by drones that ran uphill 600-plus times, waterproof firework pots were placed at various points along the 3,000-meter pathway.

On Friday afternoon, around 200 guests including local journalists, influencers, shopping mall representatives, VIP shoppers, 12 local primary school students and a living buddha witnessed the explosive work live.

“Don’t blink,” Cai warned guests before each explosion, which shot across the sky in split seconds.

Titled “Ascending Dragon,” the three-part fireworks display included a rainbow dragon that twirled around the mountain, a water dragon that interacted with the audience, and finally, a reference to the original work, a 2,500-meter golden dragon that reached toward the snowy mountain peaks.

After the display, Cai thanked the mountains, the local farmers, and the “intelligent animals” that helped him realize his childhood dream.

“We are living through a seismic shift for humanity, this flying dragon is meant to spread hope, energy, and blessing to the world,” Cai said.

Despite Cai’s efforts to highlight the environmental care behind his work — using biodegradable materials approved for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, relocating herdsmen and livestock, luring away small animals with salt bricks, and following up with debris cleanup and replanting — the message didn’t fully come across online.

Visuals of the livestreamed showcase quickly spread online and began trending on Weibo — Chinese netizens called the event “blowing up the mountains,” criticizing the project’s lack of environmental awareness and disrespect for the sacred mountains.

Related posts reached more than 2 million views on Weibo at the time of publication.

”Doing something like this on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is seriously damaging the plateau’s fragile ecosystem,” wrote the influential fashion critic and WWD columnist Huang Hong on Xiaohongshu, China‘s popular social commerce platform.

“They say it’s biodegradable, but plastic can degrade in 10,000 years. We do not support this kind of irresponsible artists,” Huang added.

Chinese netizens not only called out the brand for executing the “tone deaf and arrogant” campaign, which they believed ran counter to the brand’s original commitment to nature conservation, but also began criticizing local government for giving the explosive art piece the green light.

On Saturday afternoon, a local government official reiterated to local media that the fireworks used environmentally friendly material, thus “no environmental assessment was required.”

“Approval from the township, village and county governments was sufficient. The government held multiple meetings to select the site and assess the wildlife situation. The selected location was not located within an ecological protection zone and is uninhabited. So far, the local ecology has not been damaged. Further monitoring will be conducted,” the official added.

With public opinion against the project heightening, Hu Xijin, a top nationalist influencer, aimed to come to the rescue of both Cai and Arc’teryx with a lengthy Weibo post.

“Theoretically, as long as there is human activity, there will be some kind of impact on the original habitat, but the key here is whether the degree of the impact is contained within the standards set by the national government,” Hu wrote.

“We should refrain from interfering and criticizing. After all, Tibet needs economic growth, its environment and development should move forward in a balanced manner,” added Hu.

At midnight, local authorities said on its WeChat official account that it had already formed a special investigation unit to look into the matter.

On Sunday morning, Cai’s Cai Studio and Arc’teryx published separate statements apologizing for the event.

“The recent fireworks display on the Tibetan Plateau was out of line with Arc’teryx’s values. We’ve heard your concerns, and we share them,” Arc’teryx wrote in a statement.

“This event was in direct opposition to our commitment to outdoor spaces, who we are, and who we want to be for our people and our community. We are deeply disappointed that this happened, and apologize, full stop,” the brand continued.

“We’re addressing this directly with the local artist involved, our team in China, and will change the way we work to ensure this doesn’t happen again,” Arc’teryx said.

“On September 19, my artwork ‘Ascending Dragon’ was completed in Jiangzi County, Shigatse, Tibet, and has sparked deep public concern and discussion about the protection of the plateau’s ecological environment,” Cai Studio said in a separate statement.

“My studio and I take this matter very seriously. With a sense of reverence, we humbly accept all criticism regarding the creation of art on the snowy plateau, and we sincerely thank everyone for their concern and reminders,” the artist said. “Going forward, we will proactively cooperate with third-party organizations and relevant authorities to conduct comprehensive assessments of the project’s potential impact on the natural ecology.”

“Should any environmental impact be confirmed, we are prepared to make every effort to implement remedial and restorative measures, while also supporting the ecological and cultural tourism development of Jiangzi County with tangible actions. We have always held a profound reverence for nature,” the statement from Cai Studio continued.

Once hailed by Chinese netizens as “the Hermès of the outdoors market,” Arc’teryx experienced a steady rise in popularity and sales, fueled by China’s outdoor sports boom following the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics.

Founded in Canada in 1989 as a climbing gear company, Arc’teryx belonged to the Finnish sporting goods company Amer Sports. In 2019, Anta Sports, the Chinese sportswear giant, led a consortium — alongside private equity firm FountainVest Partners, Chip Wilson-owned Anamered Investments and Tencent Holdings — to acquire Arc’teryx-owner Amer Sports for 4.7 billion euros.

Arc’teryx, one of Amer’s flagship brands alongside French outdoor brand Salomon, generated more than $2 billion in sales in 2024, according to the company’s latest financial report. The brand aims to more than double revenue to $5 billion by 2030, with growth split evenly between China and the U.S., chief executive officer Stuart Haselden said at Amer Sports’ most recent Investor Day.

Cai’s controversial land art is a part of Arc’teryx’s “Spirit Upward” project in the Chinese market, which has staged destination events that aim to inject a wellness element into the brand’s luxury proposition.

The first season of the project involved a runway show atop a 3,000-meter mountain in Shangri-la, Yunnan Province, and the second season of the project landed at the foot of Mount Namcha Barwa in Tibet, where guests learned about the local culture via a musical performance.

Cai’s original gunpowder and ink painting for the Tibetan showcase, “Ascending Dragon: Project for Extraterrestrials No. 2,” was meant to be an imaginary dialogue with French artist Paul Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire series of oil paintings depicting the southern French mountain ridge.

“I initially imagined it as having very masculine visuals, here I was, in front of Western civilization, I must show-off the dragon, but now I have changed, I have come to appreciate androgynous beauty and a softer kind of magnificence,” Cai said after the showcase.

Cai, who first unveiled his personal artificial intelligence model cAI during a 2024 solo exhibition in Macau, also brought a lifelike robot version of cAI to observe the fireworks.

“I want him to witness and experience everything so he can share his reflections with me afterward — he will be the star of the show for my next Paris exhibition, I will be in the audience,” Cai said.