Join Dr Hongwei Bao at esea contemporary for the launch of his latest publication 'Contemporary Queer Chinese Art'.
'Contemporary Queer Chinese Art' (Bloomsbury Publishing) is the first English-language academic book that explores the intersections of queer culture and contemporary Chinese art from the mid-1980s to the present. This book brings together 15 internationally renowned artists, activists, curators and scholars to explore heterogeneous expressions of Chineseness and queerness in contemporary art from China and Chinese diasporas in Asia, Europe and North America.
Examining contemporary visual art, performance and activism, this book offers a rich archive of queer Chinese artistic expressions. It provides valuable insights into the status quo and intersectional struggles of Chinese artists who identify themselves as queer and who have associated their work with queer positionalities and perspectives. By sharing personal experiences, art expressions and critical insights about what it means to be queer and Chinese in a transnational context, the book reveals multiple forms and potentialities of queer politics in the domains of art and activism.
Dr Hongwei Bao will be joined on site with Burong Zeng, artist contributor of 'Contemporary Queer Chinese Art' to discuss the publication and relevant themes.
Following Dr Bao Hongwei's talk there will be a Manchester Pride Weekend Special Screening of Drag Up! directed by Qianlin Wang (documentary, 52' 24", UK, 2023).
About Drag Up! In June 2023, seven young, queer, and Chinese-identified people signed up for a performance art project in East London. In this month-long community art project, they would learn about what is drag and how to perform it, discover their queer Chinese heritage, and explore ways to de-westernise and decolonise drag. The training was hard but also fun. Most nerve-wracking of all, they would put on a live show in front of an audience. On a roller-coaster journey of self-discovery, they would find out about what their identity, community and politics means to drag.
This documentary is part of the Drag Up! Community Art Project supported by Queer China UK and the University of Nottingham.
Following the screening there will be a Q&A with Producer Hongwei Bao, Project Co-director Felicia Jiang, and filmmaker Qianlin Wang.
Dr Hongwei Bao is Associate Professor in Media Studies at the University of Nottingham, UK. Trained as a cultural historian, he has published four books on Chinese queer history and culture: Queer Comrades: Gay Identity and Tongzhi Activism in Postsocialist China (NIAS Press, 2018), Queer China: Lesbian and Gay Literature and Visual Culture under Postsocialism (Routledge, 2020), Queer Media in China (Routledge, 2021) and Contemporary Chinese Queer Performance (Routledge 2022). He is the co-editor of Contemporary Queer Chinese Art (Bloomsbury, 2023) and Routledge Handbook of Chinese Gender and Sexuality. He co-edits two book series: Oyster: Feminist and Queer Approaches to Arts, Cultures, and Genders (de Gruyter) and Queering China: Transnational Genders and Sexualities (Bloomsbury). Besides being an academic, he is also a creative writer. His poems, essays and short stories have appeared in Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, Modern Chinese Literature and Culture, Positions Politics, Shanghai Literary Review, The Autoethnographer, The Sociological Review, Voice and Verse, Write On, and Words Without Borders. His short story was shortlisted for the Plaza Prize for Sudden Fiction in 2023.
Felicia Jiang (she/they) is a queer theatre maker and socially engaged art practitioner.Theplay they directed,TANA, was performedonEdinburghFringein 2023; it tells the story oftwo queer Chinese students who cross the boundaries of gender, intimacy and more.As adrag artist, their Drag persona, ‘404 not found’, embodies oppressed female figures incontemporary Chinese societyand had her debut act The Chained Bird at Royal VauxhallTavernin 2022
Qianlin Wang (she/her) is a queer filmmaker, community organiser and recent University of the Arts London, London College of Communication graduate. She is passionate about using the camera to improve the visibility of marginalised communities. She directed the Drag Up! Documentary in 2023. Qianlin has been supporting the queer Chinese community through Queer China UK since 2020.
Burong Zeng (she/they) is a live art practitioner-researcher with a Doctorate in Performance Studies and art producer. Zeng is deeply interested in the lived experience of invisible disability and its affect on the meaning-making and performance-making process, particularly for diaspora and neuroqueer artists. Zeng's recent performance explores how 'sticky' and viscous materials can disrupt binary thinking and broaden our perspective of embodiment, otherness, body politics and nonhuman agency.
