CCVA PhD Forum 2025

CCVA PhD Forum 2025
Date and time
27 Jun 2025 9am - 5pm
Location

Birmingham School of Art: Margaret Street

Map and Directions

Price

Conference fee: £40

School of Art postgraduate event 2018

Venue: School of Art, Birmingham City University, UK (In-person only event)

The Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) at Birmingham City University aims to foster new understandings and perspectives of Chinese contemporary arts, design, and visual culture through interdisciplinary practices and theoretical studies. Following the 17-year success of our CCVA Annual Conference, which invites researchers, curators, artists, designers, and practitioners at all stages of their careers to share the latest research development on the theme proposed each year, we inaugurated the first CCVA PhD Forum on June 30th, 2023. This new forum provided a platform for scholars and doctoral students from the UK, China, and Austria, among other locations, to present and engage in dialogue about their doctoral research. In the past two forums (2023 and 2024), we have welcomed nearly 30 PhD students and newly awarded PhDs from universities from the UK, the mainland Europe and Asia, to give presentations. The universities include University of Oxford, the Glasgow School of Art, University of the Arts London, University of Vienna, University of Amsterdam, and the Chinese University of Hong Kong, etc.

In response to the increase of doctoral projects in the field of Chinese arts, design, media, and visual culture, this CCVA PhD Forum is designed as a UK-wide platform to support PhD students further, enhance intellectual exchanges of ideas and critical debates, expand participation of young generation scholars, and celebrate our achievement of up-to-date doctoral research. As a summer event to complement our winter conference, the CCVA PhD Forum aims to provide a unique space for all students within and beyond the UK, who are conducting doctoral research, new PhDs (awarded after June 2024), as well as for supervisors, advisors, and examiners, and those who are interested in pursuing a PhD in the future, to share, debate and innovate. 

Unlike our Annual Conference, the CCVA PhD Forum will not be themed. It welcomes proposals to present their PhD projects in any subject area of the arts and design but in relation to China and its dramatic transformations in the social, political, and cultural contexts. We see China as a method to encourage and foster cross-disciplinary discussion, new understanding, and knowledge production, and at the same time, as a focus to bring us closer to each other. 

Presentations should last no more than 20 minutes. Forum fee: £40. Please note that this Forum will be in person only.

Full Programme

09:30-10:00   Registration

10:00-10:15 Welcome Speech (Professor Jiang Jiehong)

Panel One: Crossing Boundaries and Challenges in Contemporary Art

10:15-10:30 Faye XU (University of Amsterdam)

  • The Art of Neighboring: The Politics of Resilience in Contemporary Grassroots Art Spaces

10:30-10:45 Giacomo CACCIAGUERRA (Ca’ Foscari University)

  • Out of China, Where Then? Sinophone Contemporary Art Beyond Chineseness

10:45-11:00 Xiaorong WANG (University of Plymouth)

  • Immersive Exhibitions in China: From Technological Spectacle to Artistic Dividend

11:00-11:30 Panel Discussion

Panel Two: Cultural Identity, Heritage, and Urban Memory

11:30-11:45 Siyang GU (Queens’ University Belfast)

  • The Transformation of Haipai: The Evolution of Shanghai’s Cultural Identity Through Art, Film, and Urban Change from the Late Qing onwards

11:45-12:00 Jiatao LI (De Montfort University)

  • Cultural Resilience and Sustainable Heritage Development: LI Barkcloth in Hainan, China

12:00-12:15 Zhanghui WANGCity University of Macau

  • An Investigation into the Visual Narrative of Macao's Cultural Heritage and its Urban Memory

12:15-12:45 Panel Discussion

12:45-13:45 Lunch Brea

Literary Creation and Media Practice

13:45-14:00 Chencheng WU (University of Salford)

  • Opportunities and Challenges of Chinese Online Novel Authors

14:00-14:15 Longlong GE (University of Nottingham)

  • Desire-imposed Territorialization of Assemblages: Metamorphosis in Li Bihua’s “Green Snake”

14:15-14:30 Yimin XIANG (The Glasgow School of Art)

  • Archive in the Flesh: Investigating the Anxieties of Digital Media Through Printmaking Practice

14:30-15:00 Panel Discussion

Panel Four: Art Market, Collection and Institutional Value

15:00-15:15 Yeke XU (Shanghai University)

  • German Collection of Chinese Modern and Contemporary Art Works

15:15-15:30 Yitao QIAN (SOAS, University of London

  • Specimens, Fakes, or Artifacts? Constructing Authenticity of Chinese paintings at the British Museum 1880 – 1910

15:30-15:45 Chao YAN (Birmingham City University)

  • Under the Hammer: How Chinese Auction Houses Constructed Value in Contemporary Chinese Art, 2019-2023

15:45-16:15 Panel Discussion

16:15-16:45 Break

Panel 5: Art Education and Policy Practice

16:45-17:00 Bingshuang WEI (De Montfort University)

  • The Evolution of Extra-curricular Theatre Education in Beijing, China: Interactions Among Policy, Market, and Parental Power

17:00- 17:15 Yuhong SONG (University of Salford)

  • The Application of Online Education Resources in Sino-UK Partnership Art and Design Teaching Projects

17:15-17:35 Panel Discussion

17:35-17:45 Closing Remarks