Rapid reforms in China have resulted in increasing inequalities and disjunctures. While Shanghai is transforming into a global mega-city, like many other big cities in Asia, its dwellers are often confronted with a way of life enabled and disabled by precarity. This precarity is generally perceived to be along the lines of labour and class, characterised in Guy Standing’s term “Precariat,” or those with short labour contracts and poor working conditions.
In Precariously Yours, Fei Contemporary Art Center extends the notion of precarity towards the domain of gender, love and sexuality. In particular single women serve as a prism to explore the complexities surrounding precarity, urbanity and class. For instance, the derogative term shengnü – “leftover women” – gestures towards a group of women whose singlehood at their late 20s seems to be enough to evoke intense stigmatization and reiteration of societal demands regarding love and family life. Precariously Yours wonders: How do single women negotiate the multiple expectations and demands that society imposes upon them? What are their tactics of resistance against normative gender roles and expectations? How to imagine the city as a more intimate and fragile space? What is to be lost and gained in remaining a single woman?
Precariously Yours explores these questions through an art exhibition, lectures and public debates. The workshop will particularly zoom in on how tropes like shengnü can be read as imaginations of a “new” Asian femininity, how different modes of loving and desiring are being explored in diverse creative and sexual cultures in Asian cities and how art and activism attempt to intervene in hegemonic understandings of love, gender and sexuality. Precariously Yours engages not only with Shanghai, but also with other Asian cities as to foster a comparative approach and allow reflections upon the lives and hopes of single women in a rapidly changing Asia.
During the workshop, international scholars, activists and artists will share their experiences with colleagues in China. The exhibition will feature works by LIANG Yue, GUO Qingling and Lise YUAN.
Research Workshops
2014.12.04Rockbund Art Museum
17:00 – 17:30
Workshop Opening
Opening by 3 Project Leaders
Prof. Dr. Christiane BROSIUS
(Heidelberg University )
Prof. Dr. Jeroen de KLOET
(University of Amsterdam)
Dr. Melissa BUTCHER
(The Open University, UK)
17:30 – 19:00
Public Keynote Lecture
Sex and Women in the Metropolis:
A Communitarian / Narrative View
Speaker
Prof. Dr. Josephine HO
(National Central University)
Discussant
Dr. CHOW Yiu Fai
(Hong Kong Baptist University )
Venue: 2F No.133 Yuanmingyuan Rd. Huangpu District, Shanghai
2014.12.05Meta Gallery
10:00 – 11:30
Public Keynote Lecture
Precarious Autonomy: Chinese Women Students (Re)negotiating Gender through Educational Mobility
Speaker
Dr. Fran MARTIN
(The University of Melbourne )
Discussant
Dr. Lucetta Yip Lo KAM
(Hong Kong Baptist University )
12:00 – 13:30
Public Panel Discussion: Shengnü & New Asian Women
Chair – Dr. Wayne MODEST
(Tropenmuseum )
Dr. Leta Hong FINCHER
(Hong Kong University of Science and Technology )
3 Project Leaders
Dr. Lena SCHEEN (NYU Shanghai)
15:00 – 16:00
Public Panel Discussion: Love & Desire
Chair – Prof. Dr. Christiane BROSIUS (Heidelberg University )
Dr. SHEN Yifei (Fudan University )
WU Xiaoyan
(Shanghai Institute of Arts) &
CAI Luo Yi (Feminist Activist)
16:30 – 18:30
Film Screening & Sharing by Director Walker Lee:
Women (2012)
Venue: Meta Gallery, No. 7 Lane 212 Wuyuan Road
2014.12.06Meta Gallery
10:00 – 11:30
Public Keynote Lecture
I’m Not a Feminist But...! Young Women in Urban India and Gender Politics in a Time of Globalisation
Speaker
Dr. Shilpa PHADKE
(Tata Institute of Social Science)
Discussant
Dr. Wayne MODEST
(Tropenmuseum)
12:00 – 13:30
Public Panel Discussion: Art & Activism
Chair– Dr. Melissa BUTCHER
(The Open University, UK)
Evie WU
(NVAI Representative)
Sheba CHHACHHI (Individual Artist)
Kevin MAY (NGO Worker)
13:30 – 14:30
Lunch
14:30 – 15:00
Closing
Venue: Meta Gallery, No. 7 Lane 212 Wuyuan Road
About the exhibition
Opening: 06 Dec, 2014 at 6pm-8pm
Exhibition Date: 07 Dec - 27 Dec, 2014 (11am-5pm Closed Sunday & Monday)
Venue: 709 Lingshi Road (near Wanrong Road), Building No. 40-2F, Shanghai
Artists: Guo Qingling, Liang Yue, Lise Yuen
Curator: Yiu Fai Chow
Producer: Li Xiaofei
Organisers: Fei Contemporary Art Center (FCAC), and HERA Joint Research Programme “Cultural Encounters” - Creating the ‘new’ Asian woman: entanglements of urban space, cultural encounters and gendered identities in Shanghai and Delhi [SINGLE]
Sponsor: Netherlands Embassy and Consulates, China
Venue Acknowledgements: Rockbund Art Museum, Meta Gallery
For enquiries, please contact Ms Penn Ip on 13122252089.
Courtesy of Fei Contemporary Art Center.
