The Body and Classical Chinese Aesthetics

This series of screenings/panel discussions accompanying the SOAS Gallery exhibition ‘In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere’ showcases contemporary video artworks by Sinophone artists along with in-depth discussions about their making and significance with the artists and experts in the field of Chinese contemporary art studies. The screened artworks are aesthetically and technically diverse. They also address a range of issues, including institutional critique, patriarchy, resistance to authority, queer identity, social control, climate change and well-being. Panel discussions at the screenings will be followed by extended audience Q&A.

The videos featured in this series of screenings contrast aesthetically in many cases with those included in the exhibition ‘In-/Visible Spectrums.’ While all the videos in the exhibition are lyrical, poetic and conceptually abstract most of those featured in the screenings involve more explicit narratives and/or forms of social engagement.

This screening/panel showcases a video by the mainland China-based artist Tong Wenmin . Tong's video presents a spontaneous performance by the artist that seeks to unify humanity and nature. Discussion accompanying the screening will explore relationships between Tong's work and classical Chinese Daoist-inflected aesthetics. The panel will be co-chaired by Dr. Kiki Tianqi Lu, an internationally renowned expert on Daoist culture and cinema.

This talk will be with Tong Wenmin 童文敏 with Dr. Kiki Tianqi Yu 余天琦 with Professor Paul Gladston

Exhibition and screenings/panels produced and financially supported by the University of New South Wales Judith Neilson Chair of Contemporary Art (JNCCA).

The event is being held at the Khalili Lecture Theatre (KLT) at SOAS, University of London. When you arrive at SOAS, you will need to sign in at the front desk, then you will be directed to the KLT.

Paul Gladston

Paul GLADSTON is the inaugural Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art, University of New South Wales, Sydney, a Distinguished Affiliate Fellow of the UK-China Humanities Alliance, Tsinghua University, Beijing and a member of the governing board of the journal Third Text. His book-length publications include Contemporary Chinese Art: A Critical History (Reaktion 2014), awarded ‘best publication’, Awards of Art China (2015), and Contemporary Chinese Art, Aesthetic Modernity and Zhang Peili: Towards a Critical Contemporaneity (Bloomsbury 2019). He is the founding editor of the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art (Intellect) and the book series Contemporary East Asian Visual Cultures, Societies and Politics (Palgrave) as well as being the editor of numerous collected editions and special journal editions, including Rethinking Displays of Chinese Contemporary Art: Cultural Diversity and Tradition (Palgrave 2024) and Visual Culture Wars at the Borders of Contemporary China: Art, Design, Film, New Media and the Prospects of “Post-West" Contemporaneity (Palgrave 2021). He was the curatorial director of the exhibition ‘Yique’s Way – Mutuality in Extremes’ (Ugly Duck, London 2024), organizer of a scholarly roundtable accompanying the exhibition ‘Strange Wonders: Jizi and Pioneers of Contemporary Ink Art from China’, SOAS Gallery (2024) and an academic advisor to the internationally acclaimed exhibition ‘Art of Change: New Directions from China’ (Hayward Gallery-South Bank Centre, London 2012).

Kiki Tianqi Yu

Kiki Tianqi YU is Reader in Cinematic Art at Queen Mary University of London. She is the PI of AHRC funded project “Meditative Cinema: Daoism, Wellbeing and Film” (2025-28), the author of ‘My’ Self on Camera (2019), the co-editor of Essay Film and Narrative Techniques (2025), China’s iGeneration (2014). Her award-winning films include Memory of Home (2009), China’s van Goghs (2016). Her curation includes “The Spirit of Mountains and Water” (London 2023), “Dancing with Water” (London 2024) and Memory Talks (2019).

Tong Wenmin

Tong Wenmin is an artist working across performance and moving image. Born in 1989 in Chongqing, China, she graduated in 2012 from the Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, where she continues to live and work.

Tong’s practice explores the relationship between individual perception and the external environment, often generating forms of visual poetry through actions that initially appear counter-intuitive. Her work foregrounds the expressive and allegorical potential of the body, situating gesture and behaviour within semantically rich contexts. Through these approaches, she invites reflection on how meaning is constructed through the interplay of action, perception and surrounding conditions.

In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere is a landmark exhibition of eleven Sinophone artists working across mainland China, Hong Kong and the diaspora. Featuring lyrical and conceptually rich video works, it explores transcultural aesthetics, everyday experience and shifting identities within the fluid, global Sinosphere. The exhibition opens on Thursday 16th April and is on until 20th June 2026 at the SOAS Gallery. Open Tuesday to Saturday 10:30am-5pm and late on Thursdays until 8pm. Free and open to the public, no booking required.

Header image: Crawl (2018-2019), three-channel video, colour, sound, 22'48", 19'55", 25'02" by Tong Wenmin

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Host or Publisher Brunei Gallery, SOAS