Dr Shiyu Gao
Dr Shiyu Gao, awarded the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, is working on their post-doctoral research project about surveillance and art in digital China at Birmingham School of Art (SoA). Before joining SoA in January 2024, Shiyu taught Art History and Theory at the University of Edinburgh, where they obtained their PhD in History of Art in 2023 and Master of Science in Modern and Contemporary Art in 2012.
Shiyu’s research focuses on the body, ecology, asymmetry, feminism and queer technoscience, innovative media and technology in East Asian contemporary art and visual culture. Shiyu has created the concept of expanded media art in their PhD thesis, Beyond the Binary Body: Reconstructing Subjectivity and Identity in Chinese Expanded Media Art, 1988 to the Present, to provide a new critical approach to re-examining Chinese contemporary art beyond the binary distinctions between art and technology, humans and non-humans, nature and culture, urban and rural, local and global.
Shiyu worked as a curator for museums and galleries, including the Stills Gallery (Edinburgh), the CAFA Art Museum (Beijing), and the Victoria and Albert Museum (London). Shiyu has lectured at prestigious universities, including Oxford University, University College London, Peking University, and the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Shiyu participated in and chaired various international academic conferences, including the 34th CIHA World Congress of Art History by the Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art (CIHA), The Association for Asian Studies (AAS) Annual Conference, and the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) Annual Conference.
Shiyu has contributed to international auction companies and published in leading art academic journals and books in various languages (English, French, Chinese), including the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art by Intellect and Les Cahiers du Musée national d’art modern by the Centre Pompidou Paris.
Shiyu has trained as a painter and calligrapher and participated as an artist in the 2016 Shanghai Biennale.