Feeling Political: Art as Public Sphere in the Cross-Strait Worlds

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Speaker: I-Yi Hsieh, Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Geography, National Taiwan University

Moderator: Nick Bartlett, Assistant Professor of Contemporary Chinese Culture and Society, AMEC/EALAC, Barnard College

The recent boom-and-bust of art museums in China has attracted global attentions (Hsieh 2021, Fei 2025). Revealing the industry’s instability rooted in entanglements the financial sector, the wave of museum closures in P.R.C. indicates the changing horizon of art institutions as public space for political cacophony. This talk draws on my book Flora and Fauna: Domestic Nature and Private Collecting in Reform Era Beijing (2025) and the exhibition Contested Waters (2024-2025) to further the conversation by addressing art as public sphere in the cross-strait worlds. I shall introduce my book’s ethnographic lens capturing the rise of private collecting as alternative to the diminishing public realm for political expressions. While, on the other side of the Taiwan Strait, Taiwanese artists and art institutions increasingly showcase projects with a focus on geopolitical tensions. It is the worst of the time and the best of time for political art in the cross-strait worlds.

This event is hosted by the Weatherhead East Asian Institute.

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Host or Publisher Weatherhead East Asian Institute