Sinophonecene?: Tracing Environmental and Cohabitational Perspectives in Contemporary Chinese Art

Exploring the relevance and multiple relations of both concepts as mediated in specific aesthetic, visual, and performative practices, and affiliated understandings of the planetary, seven academic case studies, supplemented by four conversations with emergent and senior curators, map the “Sinophonecene”. This book traces the intersections between the growing controversies revolving around the Anthropocene on the one hand, and artistic and curatorial practices situated in the Sinophone world on the other. Exploring the relevance and multiple relations of both concepts as mediated in specific aesthetic, visual, and performative practices, and affiliated understandings of the planetary, seven academic case studies, supplemented by four conversations with emergent and senior curators, map the “Sinophonecene”. Accounting for the transcultural entanglements of different ontologies—humans, plants, animals, as well as technoid beings—and being aware of Man’s epistemological conditions and limits, the recent concept helps to think through global issues of habitability and interspecies relationships with regard to the particular world of Chinese contemporary art. Eschewing essentialist, nationalist, civilizational, and human-centric notions of “Chineseness” in favor of more “worlded” approaches, the multi-vocal chapters also contribute to bridging existent divides between area specialists, art historians, artists, curators and educators, who are engaged in the field. Franziska Koch is Senior Lecturer (akademische Oberrätin) in the fields of art history and transcultural studies at Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany. Nora Wölfing is an academic researcher, curator and writer specialized in contemporary art from the Sinophone Region. She is pursuing her doctoral studies at Freie Universität Berlin. Cila Brosius is an independent German-American curator, based in Copenhagen, Denmark. This book traces the intersections between the growing controversies revolving around the Anthropocene on the one hand, and artistic and curatorial practices situated in the Sinophone world on the other. Exploring the relevance and multiple relations of both concepts as mediated in specific aesthetic, visual, and performative practices, and affiliated understandings of the planetary, seven academic case studies, supplemented by four conversations with emergent and senior curators, map the “Sinophonecene”. Accounting for the transcultural entanglements of different ontologies—humans, plants, animals, as well as technoid beings—and being aware of Man’s epistemological conditions and limits, the recent concept helps to think through global issues of habitability and interspecies relationships with regard to the particular world of Chinese contemporary art. Eschewing essentialist, nationalist, civilizational, and human-centric notions of “Chineseness” in favor of more “worlded” approaches, the multi-vocal chapters also contribute to bridging existent divides between area specialists, art historians, artists, curators and educators, who are engaged in the field.