Australasian Network for Asian Art
The Australasian Network for Asian Art (an4aa) is a group of researchers including academics and curators from Australia and New Zealand working in the field of Asian art and visual culture. The Network and its affiliated listserv serve as a platform to share research, promote events and exhibitions, foster a scholarly community, cultivate interest, and act as a vehicle for advocacy.
Guan Wei, Detail from Feng Shui, 2004. Acrylic on composite board. Museum of Contemporary Art, donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Cromwell Diversified Property Trust. Reproduced courtesy of the artist.
Upcoming Events
Upcoming Events
an4aa Talks 2024
Wednesday 10 April 2024, 12:40 - 13:30 AEST
RMIT University, Cinema Theatre, and on ZOOM
Discourses of Feminine Ideals in China: Literati Fantasies and State Politics
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Prof Eva Kit Wah Man, Chair Professor in Humanities, Hong Kong Metropolitan University, Director, Hong Kong Art School
Co-hosted by RMIT CAST and the Australasian Network for Asian Art an4aa.org
This keynote lecture examines the intersection between the development of female aesthetics and the notion of the feminine ideal in China. Interrogating the ways in which Chinese traditions and the patriarchal system have informed the male imagination, this lecture considers the construction of the idealised woman as the product of male wishes, regrets, and fantasies. These projections have been captured and represented over the years by the literati. Exploring the development and construction of the feminine ideal from the courtesan culture of late Imperial China through to contemporary Chinese society, this lecture concludes with a comparative study of gender representations in China and the cosmopolitan West.