The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant 2016 Grantees

Asia Art Archive (AAA) announces the 2016 grantees of The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant.

Awarded research proposals

Major Grant
Belinda Qian He, “The Mise en Scène of (In)justice: The Art and Visual Economy of Pidou in China”

Secondary Grants
Duan Ziying, “The Third Concept of Space: Art in the PRD Beyond Thematic Urbanism and Institutional Experimentation”

Liu Nanxi, “The Art of Being Present: Live Performance in China During the 1990s”

The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant offers grantees a one-year fellowship to conduct research on contemporary art from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The top grantee is awarded 15,000 USD, while two runners-up receive 5,000 USD each. Grant recipients are expected to research on-site at AAA for up to two months in addition to conducting fieldwork in the region relevant to the project.

The awarded proposals were selected from an open call of over seventy applications.

Belinda Qian He’s research project is a multidisciplinary exploration of the representation of struggle sessions and its reconstruction and circulation in a socialist and post-socialist media culture. The research will centre on case studies at the intersection of art history, film, display culture, anthropology, and memory studies to establish a relationship between the daily realities during the Maoist Period and the projected image of these major events in Chinese history. The research will historicise struggle sessions, focussing on artistic productions such as one-hundred-evil posters and class struggle crime exhibitions. There will be an analysis of how the image of struggle sessions fosters the social construction of virtue in post-war Chinese societies.

Duan Ziying’s research focuses on three exhibitions that explore urbanisation: Hong Kong, etc. (1997), Cities on the Move (1999)—specifically the editions mounted at Vienna Secession and Hayward Gallery—and Z.O.U. - Zone of Urgency (2003). Other exhibitions in Asia during the same period referencing these three shows will also be examined. This project will focus on the development of architecture and the idea of a global city, as well as examine the impact that architectural research has on exhibitions about urbanisation.

Liu Nanxi’s research project examines performance art festivals in China with the aim to build a substantial collection of documentation surrounding the earliest stage of performance art festivals in China. During the 1990s, performance art in Beijing East Village rose to prominence, while performance artists gathered and performed in public spaces in Chengdu. Artists started to curate, organising performance art events in the late nineties. Since 2000, festivals have become important sites for performance art. This project takes the history of Chinese performance art festivals in context with critical discussions about the festival format itself.

Biographies
Belinda Qian He is a PhD candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media at the University of Washington. Her essays are forthcoming or published in Journal of Chinese Cinemas, The China Review, and Siyi Journal. She is a co-organiser of the Moving Images Research Group (Graduate Research Cluster).

Duan Ziying received her MA in Curatorial Practice at California College of the Arts, San Francisco. She is Assistant Curator of Asia Programs at Kadist Art Foundation, San Francisco, and Assistant Curator at Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco. She contributes to LEAP magazine.

Liu Nanxi received her MA in Cultural Management at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. She contributes to Art World magazine and Artforum. Liu was an organiser and an artist for the 2015 Performance Art International Exchange Project.

Jury for The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Research Grant 2016
Feng Yuan, Professor and Director of the Visual Culture Research Center in Guangzhou Sun Yat-sen University
Li Xianting, Beijing-based independent critic and curator
Sing Song-yong, Professor in the Graduate Institute of Animation and Film Art, Tainan National University of the Arts
Jane DeBevoise, Chair, Board of Directors, Asia Art Archive
Anthony Yung, Researcher, Asia Art Archive