Abstract
This study examines Li Tianbing’s use of cultural things in his artwork to represent and reimagine past reality, primarily through his memories of the China’s one-child policy era. The objective is to analyse how Li employs things to reconstruct reality and depict the relationship between memory, identity, and socio-political consequences of implementing the policy. This work is essential for reconsidering the role of visual representation in forming historical and social narratives, as the one-child policy has significantly impacted individual and collective identities and memory. Analysing Li’s application of things to describe memory and identity contributes to Art History and Material Culture Studies. This research utilises the Social History of Art to contextualise Li’s artwork within the historical framework of China’s one-child policy, the Material Culture Studies to identify the role of things in memory construction, a Biographical Approach to explore Li’s personal experiences, and briefly incorporates a Psychoanalytic Approach to address the psychological dimensions of identity. Through artefact and contextual analysis, this research investigates how Li challenges the boundaries of fantasies and reality. The study reveals Li’s strategies of representing the past reality by bringing back memories through cultural things. Li constructs a dynamic identity with ongoing negotiations with historical forces when dealing with the trauma left by the policy. Ultimately, the study argues that Li’s art portrays cultural things as ‘memory carriers’ in reinterpreting the past reality, offering an interdisciplinary perspective to expand the interpretation of representation and its influence on memory and identity.
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
Li Tianbing, Representation, Reality, Cultural Things, Memory, Identity, One-Child Policy
