Global Art History, Surrealism, Cosmopolitanism, Chinese Studies, French Studies, Photography.
Association for Art History
MA Contemporary Arts China, Guest Lecturer
Lauren's current research revolves around the global art history of the Surrealist movement alongside cross-cultural artistic convergences in Shanghai. She is currently finishing various publications relating to Surrealism in China during the Modernist era and from 1st September 2021, she will be commencing a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship investigating Surrealism in the People’s Republic of China (1949-present).
In 2018, Lauren was awarded the Gary Metz fellowship to conduct research on Mexican Surrealist Lola Alvarez Bravo at the Centre for Creative Photography in Arizona and was also recipient of a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Henry Moore Foundation in Leeds (2019) to explore the Surrealist reception of African art.
Publications
September 2017: From the “Rue des Nations” to the “Rue aux Lèvres”: The 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition Parody of the 1889 and 1900 World Fair Cityscapes Rivista MDCCC1800 Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia: Edizioni Ca' Foscari. http://doi.org/10.14277/2280-8841/MDCCC-6-17-1
November 2017: Transmediality in Symbolist and Surrealist Photo-Literature (Bruges La Morte and Nadja) in Open Cultural Studies De Grutyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2017-0020
December 2018: Le Surréalisme en Chine: Terrain Inconnu / Surrealism in China: Unchartered Territory Revue Histoire de L’Art (Institut National de l’Histoire de L’Art, Paris). https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/9163/
October 2019: ‘British Museum Photography at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition’ Visual Resources (Taylor and Francis). https://doi.org/10.1080/01973762.2020.1672358
February 2020: ‘Cultural Diplomacy in Regional Art Institutions’ Visual Studies (Taylor and Francis). https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2020.1715242
April 2021: ‘Africa in the Surrealist Imaginary: Photography of Sculpture in Minotaure and Documents’ Visual Anthropology (Taylor and Francis) Volume 34. Issue 3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1908110
November 2022: Le Surréalisme de Paris à Shanghai [Surrealism from Paris to Shanghai] book publication with Fondation Giacometti/Editions Hippocampe https://www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en/our-publications#https://www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en/publication/82/le-surrealisme-de-paris-a-shanghai
November 2022: ‘Surrealism in China’ in The Routledge Companion to Surrealism, edited by Kirsten Strom (New York: Routledge) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003139652-32/surrealism-china-lauren-walden
March 2023: 'Lola Álvarez Bravo: Subverting Surrealist Photography in Mexico' Photography and Culture https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2181803
April 2023: Surrealism in Chinese Periodicals: Hedonism, Horror, and Shanghai’s Former French Concession Dada/Surrealism No.24 https://doi.org/10.17077/0084-9537.31894
Blogs
February 2021 ‘The Cercle Sportif Francais: Elite cosmopolitanism in Shanghai’s Former French Concession’ Historical Photographs of China, University of Bristol.
https://visualisingchina.net/blog/2021/02/10/guest-blog-the-cercle-sportif-francais-elite-cosmopolitanism-in-shanghais-former-french-concession/
Conference and Seminar Presentations
March 2016: ‘Camera Work and Minotaure: Cosmopolitan Connections between Symbolist and Surrealist Photography’ Coventry University (seminar)
July 2016: Transnational Travelogues: Comparing Breton’s Surrealist Martinique Charmeuse de Serpents with Gauguin’s Symbolist Noa Noa of Tahiti. (Durham University: Transnational French Modernisms International Conference)
July 2016: Surrealism: A Global Cultural Movement with Local Political Agency. IAFOR Global Studies Conference 2016. (Barcelona: International Conference)
November 2016: Transmediality in Symbolist and Surrealist Photo-literature (University of Szcencin, Poland 17-19th Nov International conference: Transmediating Cultures)
May 2017: ‘The Generalised Other: Surrealist Photography of Adrienne Fidelin’ University of Warwick and Coventry University Postgraduate Conference
October 2017: ‘Lola Alvarez Bravo: Imagining a Socialist and Indigenous Mexico through Surrealist Journal Photography’ - Eighth International Conference on the Image Venice International University San Servolo Island October 31-November 1st 2017
January 2018: ‘The Irony of Tradition: Guan Xiao and the Chinese Pavilion’ University of Oxford China Centre International Postgraduate conference.
April 2018: ‘Surrealism in China: The Case of Lang Jingshan’ Association of Art Historians International Conference Courtauld Institute of Art and King College London. Global Surrealism Panel.
August 2019: ‘Surrealist Photography in China’ International Society for the Study of Surrealism Annual Conference, University of Exeter.
December 2020: ‘Shanghai through a Socialist Lens: photographic counter-narratives to a capitalist modernity’ World War Two and Urban Reconstruction in the Socialist World, University of Leicester.
May 2021: ‘Surrealist Photography in Republican Shanghai: From Hedonism to Horror’ University of Bristol East Asian History Seminar.
May 2021: ‘Surrealism and Shanghai’s Virtual Cosmopolis of Pictorials’ Mixed Cities and Cosmopolitanism in the first half of the twentieth century, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
