Xiangming Chen

I study early modern arts and visual culture of China and Japan, with a research interest in the movements of people, objects, and concepts across and beyond East Asia and how these entanglements shaped different modernities. My doctoral dissertation investigates how Chinese art gained new currency during the middle of the Edo period (1603 – 1867), shaped by and shaping commercial publishing, art-historical consciousness, cultural prestige, and social contentions. In connection with this project, I am also very interested in how updated source materials from late Ming and Qing China entered Japan through the complex Asian trade network and became appropriated and capitalized through the new Japanese publications. Further, I want to understand how Japanese views of China and Chinese art changed over time amidst internal contentions and increasing awareness of the outside world.

I hold a BA (first-class honours) in Art History and French from the University of Hong Kong and a DAAD-funded joint-degree MA in Transcultural Studies from Heidelberg University and Kyoto University. The June and Simon Li Graduate Scholarship in Art History generously funds my DPhil at Oxford.

I have worked as Curatorial Assistant at Tai Kwun Contemporary in Hong Kong and have held internships/placements at the Bodleian Libraries, M+, and CUHK Art Museum, among others. I am passionate about connecting museum collections with academic and public communities.