Art Diplomacy and Nation Branding: The Visual Politics of Reinventing China
Lead Research Organisation:
De Montfort University
Department Name: LMS - Leicester Media School
Abstract
Our research investigates how Chinese contemporary art has increasingly become a popular method to help rejuvenate China's nation brand. With the country growing in influence, its newly-gained reputation as a superpower is also being reinforced through the strategic promotion of its culture and arts. Our research aims to trace the growing power, cachet and cultural capital of Chinese contemporary art as a key element in transforming the foreign public's perception of a country that is eager to orchestrate its international image. We seek to analyse how two spheres of activities - Chinese contemporary art and government nation branding efforts - are now entwined, and with what effects for the curatorial and artistic development in China and beyond, in view of our globalised art world.
Our research is born out of an urgent critical inquisitiveness to document China's global rise and its impact on world cultures. We place our research questions at the intersection of multiple concerns: artistic trends, Chinese nationalism, cultural values, (macro)marketing and global politics. We also cross multiple boundaries, be they academic disciplines (international relations and visual arts) or distinct industries (nation branding, creative arts and museums), to boost knowledge.
Our starting point is the idea of nation branding and China. The concept of nation branding has been widely discussed in the past few years in fields such as marketing, international relations and communications studies. It has almost become a catch-all term, incorporating related themes such as country of origin effect, made-in country image, cultural stereotype and place branding. Our examination of the topic, however, is inspired by both theoretical and practiced-based thinking from the humanities. We approach the concept by going beyond its framework of selling a nation and maximising nation brand recognition for potential consumers and tourists, but by focusing on the promotion of national ideals, identities and values, especially on the cultural horizon. We analyse this topic from a globalised visual arts point of view by examining works by Chinese artists exhibited at home and abroad. We argue that a solid understanding of China's global reputation and national brand image must be anchored to the ways in which key visual practices are being used to advertise the country.
Our research will address questions such as: How is the growing field of Chinese contemporary arts creating a new style and tone for the nation brand? How are artists creating new possibilities for China to represent itself at global events? How does the political usage of Chinese contemporary art reveal the dilemmas and politics of art diplomacy? More importantly, how does this combination of art, nationalism and state oversight affect China's latest aspirations to excel in creativity and originality in many different fields?
We aim, therefore, to gain a critical understanding of the multi-layered tensions at stake: the freedom of creative imagination enjoyed by artists, institutional values and rationalities embraced by curators, the material and political gains required of nation branding, and finally, Chinese government control. Our objective is to survey this precarious terrain and highlight the political, aesthetic and ethical tensions. We seek to produce pivotal and essential knowledge so stakeholders, such as curators, artists and cultural industry professionals, can have a timely road map to help guide them through this maze.
Our research is born out of an urgent critical inquisitiveness to document China's global rise and its impact on world cultures. We place our research questions at the intersection of multiple concerns: artistic trends, Chinese nationalism, cultural values, (macro)marketing and global politics. We also cross multiple boundaries, be they academic disciplines (international relations and visual arts) or distinct industries (nation branding, creative arts and museums), to boost knowledge.
Our starting point is the idea of nation branding and China. The concept of nation branding has been widely discussed in the past few years in fields such as marketing, international relations and communications studies. It has almost become a catch-all term, incorporating related themes such as country of origin effect, made-in country image, cultural stereotype and place branding. Our examination of the topic, however, is inspired by both theoretical and practiced-based thinking from the humanities. We approach the concept by going beyond its framework of selling a nation and maximising nation brand recognition for potential consumers and tourists, but by focusing on the promotion of national ideals, identities and values, especially on the cultural horizon. We analyse this topic from a globalised visual arts point of view by examining works by Chinese artists exhibited at home and abroad. We argue that a solid understanding of China's global reputation and national brand image must be anchored to the ways in which key visual practices are being used to advertise the country.
Our research will address questions such as: How is the growing field of Chinese contemporary arts creating a new style and tone for the nation brand? How are artists creating new possibilities for China to represent itself at global events? How does the political usage of Chinese contemporary art reveal the dilemmas and politics of art diplomacy? More importantly, how does this combination of art, nationalism and state oversight affect China's latest aspirations to excel in creativity and originality in many different fields?
We aim, therefore, to gain a critical understanding of the multi-layered tensions at stake: the freedom of creative imagination enjoyed by artists, institutional values and rationalities embraced by curators, the material and political gains required of nation branding, and finally, Chinese government control. Our objective is to survey this precarious terrain and highlight the political, aesthetic and ethical tensions. We seek to produce pivotal and essential knowledge so stakeholders, such as curators, artists and cultural industry professionals, can have a timely road map to help guide them through this maze.
Planned Impact
Our research will be enhanced by our proposed network of academics and industry practitioners from the museum and nation branding/marketing sectors. Hence, there will be a natural outflow of impact beyond the academia to these two industries in China and the UK. For practitioners in the UK, we endeavour to create impact by widening and deepening their knowledge base on China, providing empirical evidence and narrative case studies on the fusion of nation branding mechanisms and contemporary art.
Specifically, our findings will impact the museum sector, in particular curators, cultural industry workers and policy makers in the UK who are organising China-related exhibits and events. This will occur on two levels: knowledge transfer and practical collaborations. Our research conclusions will help strengthen the critical thinking capacity among practitioners and identify new channels of Chinese artistic expressions for them. By better understanding the artistic developments in China, these professionals will be well equipped to introduce new artists, curatorial practices, exhibit themes and sustainable policies that could advance their institution's overall goals, including their audience reach and diversity. Beyond knowledge, our impact will also manifest in actual collaborations with museum professionals as co-curators of new China-themed exhibits at public arts venues at national and local community levels. We have already identified different venues, and we will help draft, plan and organise inventive exhibitions featuring Chinese and British artists in dialogue.
By producing relevant and timely knowledge, we envision another key impact of strengthening the collective China literacy that will enable UK-based branding experts who are or who will work in the future on China-related promotional and public relations projects. Being 'China literate' in this context means possessing insights on contemporary Chinese cultural trends, a keener awareness of the risks of cross-cultural projects, cultural polices and state oversight. For example, our industry-oriented research report - clearly articulated in a concise policy-paper format - will serve as a useful tool. This research report will deliver much-needed new and balanced knowledge on how art influences China's nation brand, and vice versa. This critical knowledge can help branding experts see clearly the Chinese approach to statecraft, national identity, artistic practices and the broader issue of political ideologies' influence on marketing. Thus equipped, they can navigate the complex process of branding China and engage constructively and critically with their clients, users and audiences. Our outputs also have the potential to impact UK-based branding experts who are not even engaging with China, as discussions on nation branding have been revived here in the context of Brexit. Our critical appraisal of Chinese developments could become a fresh case study in the handling of art diplomacy and the construction of a nation brand.
Turning to possible impact in China, we see similar effects of knowledge transfer and practical collaborations with the museum sector. Because the whole field of art management is still underdeveloped and art activities are often run by civil servants and not by art professionals, we can provide extra resources through our academic outputs and our industry-oriented research report. Our networking visits to China (see further explanations in the Case for Support document) will also allow us to initiate a practical dialogue with curators, artists and art students. The impact of such contacts and debates would be honest and balanced evaluations of the tensions, implications and politics of conjoining nation branding and art. These beginnings could lead to future impactful collaborations, including on art exhibits and public symposiums.
Specifically, our findings will impact the museum sector, in particular curators, cultural industry workers and policy makers in the UK who are organising China-related exhibits and events. This will occur on two levels: knowledge transfer and practical collaborations. Our research conclusions will help strengthen the critical thinking capacity among practitioners and identify new channels of Chinese artistic expressions for them. By better understanding the artistic developments in China, these professionals will be well equipped to introduce new artists, curatorial practices, exhibit themes and sustainable policies that could advance their institution's overall goals, including their audience reach and diversity. Beyond knowledge, our impact will also manifest in actual collaborations with museum professionals as co-curators of new China-themed exhibits at public arts venues at national and local community levels. We have already identified different venues, and we will help draft, plan and organise inventive exhibitions featuring Chinese and British artists in dialogue.
By producing relevant and timely knowledge, we envision another key impact of strengthening the collective China literacy that will enable UK-based branding experts who are or who will work in the future on China-related promotional and public relations projects. Being 'China literate' in this context means possessing insights on contemporary Chinese cultural trends, a keener awareness of the risks of cross-cultural projects, cultural polices and state oversight. For example, our industry-oriented research report - clearly articulated in a concise policy-paper format - will serve as a useful tool. This research report will deliver much-needed new and balanced knowledge on how art influences China's nation brand, and vice versa. This critical knowledge can help branding experts see clearly the Chinese approach to statecraft, national identity, artistic practices and the broader issue of political ideologies' influence on marketing. Thus equipped, they can navigate the complex process of branding China and engage constructively and critically with their clients, users and audiences. Our outputs also have the potential to impact UK-based branding experts who are not even engaging with China, as discussions on nation branding have been revived here in the context of Brexit. Our critical appraisal of Chinese developments could become a fresh case study in the handling of art diplomacy and the construction of a nation brand.
Turning to possible impact in China, we see similar effects of knowledge transfer and practical collaborations with the museum sector. Because the whole field of art management is still underdeveloped and art activities are often run by civil servants and not by art professionals, we can provide extra resources through our academic outputs and our industry-oriented research report. Our networking visits to China (see further explanations in the Case for Support document) will also allow us to initiate a practical dialogue with curators, artists and art students. The impact of such contacts and debates would be honest and balanced evaluations of the tensions, implications and politics of conjoining nation branding and art. These beginnings could lead to future impactful collaborations, including on art exhibits and public symposiums.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Jenifer Chao (Principal Investigator) | |
| Jiehong Jiang (Co-Investigator) |
Publications
Chao J
(2022)
The visual politics of Brand China: Exceptional history and speculative future
in Place Branding and Public Diplomacy
| Description | While our project is still ongoing, we can already communicate some preliminary discoveries. These outcomes flew naturally from the two different emphases of the project: first, a hypothesis- and theoretical-driven concern, and second, a more practice-based objective. For this first endeavour, central to our inquiry was how visual culture and art diplomacy have been cultivated, integrated and capitalised in recent years to enhance China's international reputation. We wanted to produce timely knowledge that documents how Chinese contemporary art and culture have increasingly become an instrument of soft power to help rejuvenate China's nation brand and international image. By studying the key case study of the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, we have dissected how China's cultural policies, political ideology and Chinese contemporary art coalesce to create images of the nation. We have discovered how recent and relevant Chinese cultural policies and political discourses have steered - if not controlled - the country's global promotion of its image. Moreover, the curatorial process for the China Pavilion in Venice has been institutionally guarded, while the explanatory discourse communicated to the audience has been dominated by narratives about its traditional culture. This emphasis on the country's traditional culture and its dynastic past has served as the foundation of its international communication strategy. This past-centric approach has continued and is now embedded within its latest cultural policy on digital cultural trade. We have discovered and documented how the state's priority for the cultivation of 'vigorous' development of cultural trade through the establishment of digital cultural content -- including digital arts -- has been trickling down to the domain of contemporary art. We have shown that, for example, artworks in the China Pavilion (edition 2022) have been experimenting with the combination of Chinese traditions and digital innovations by rendering iconic Chinese nationalistic images such as mountain and water (as commonly imagined in its mountain-and-water ink paintings, shan-shui hua, or landscape paintings) through the technologies of machine learning and AI. In these instances, machine learning is used both to extract patterns from Chinese terrain data and then to generate a new object after learning from those data. We have achieved a great deal with this award. These aforementioned and other discoveries have been published in one peer-reviewed journal article (already with over 1,000 views in 6 months) and 2 more publications near completion. Our team members have also disseminated these findings through multiple (public) lectures in the UK and in Asia. This existing award has also led to 2 follow-on grant applications with one submitted (in collaboration with LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore) and another in progress (the AHRC). For our second endeavour which was more practical, we wanted to create a network of academics, artists, and other museum professionals to better understand the connections between Chinese state politics, cultural policies and contemporary art. We have achieved this through our website; our 2 expert roundtables with leading Chinese curators; our conference, and finally, our multiple institutional and museum visits. We have seen a multiplication of our professional relationships and will continue to leverage them for new collaborations, some of which are already in progress. |
| Exploitation Route | We have always aimed to engage with stakeholders beyond academia. Due to the aforementioned practice-based and networking element of our project, our outcomes are also benefitting those in the field of museum policy, arts management and the creative industries in the UK. Our research conclusions could help identify new channels of Chinese artistic expressions for these practitioners. By better understanding the artistic developments in China, these professionals are better-equipped to introduce new artists, curatorial practices, exhibit themes and sustainable policies that could advance their institution's overall goals, including their audience reach and diversity. During the life of the project, we have already met with multiple museum professionals both in the UK and in China to share our findings. We will continue to do so as the project winds down. Moreover, the academic community, as well as professionals in the creative industry in China, would also be beneficiaries given that research on Chinese national image and the country's soft power has also spread within the country itself. We hope to plan more dissemination events for our audiences in China. |
| Sectors | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| URL | https://china-art-nationbranding.org/resources/ |
| Description | Our project is still ongoing but already we have assertively disseminated our findings through public engagements. While we are unable to accurately measure impact, we have reached so many different groups of stakeholders. We believe we have widened and deepened audiences' knowledge on Chinese contemporary art, providing empirical evidence and narrative case studies on the fusion of nation branding mechanisms and contemporary art. By better understanding the artistic developments in China, these professionals have been enabled to explore new artists, curatorial practices, and exhibit themes that align with their institution's own goals, including the expansion of their audience reach in China. This critical knowledge has also helped branding experts see clearly the Chinese approach to statecraft, national identity, artistic practices and the broader issue of political ideology's influence on marketing. Beyond knowledge, our impact has also manifested in actual collaborations with museum professionals on new art exhibits (as these plans are still being finalised, we are unable to announce them publicly for now). We have also started a new research partnership with LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore as a direct result of this award. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Creative Economy,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | "In Conversation with the China Pavilion" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | This was an expert roundtable and an engagement event hosted by the project's CI Professor Jiang Jiehong. The hybrid face-to-face and online event featured the whole curatorial team behind the China Pavilion at the 2022 Venice Biennale. The event was conducted in Chinese and video recorded. It was later translated into English, subtitled and uploaded to our project website. The China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale was the key case study for our project, given its complex position at the intersection of art, cultural diplomacy and global geopolitics. The pavilion is governed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, and consequently, it has always served as a vehicle to promote the country's national identity and culture. The high visibility of the venue is the welcomed opportunity for the country to manage its global reputation capital, whether as a stage to express the country's cultural uniqueness or as a site for cultural diplomacy and nation branding. During the roundtable discussion, the curators detailed the curatorial strategies and challenges of translating traditional Chinese culture into global contemporary art aesthetics for an international art exhibit. Such insights are precisely what our project aimed to document as these exhibits conjoin state politics, cultural policies, curatorial practices and artistic innovations. The artists also shared their methods of embedding AI and deep-machine learning into artistic creations in response to the biennale's theme of the relationship between humans and technologies. The event was hosted by the Ca' Foscari University in Venice. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://china-art-nationbranding.org/resources/ |
| Description | A website for our project to engage with public, academia and industry |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | One of the central aims of our project is to establish a network of experts to investigate how China is regenerating its global media image and its nation brand through the soft power of Chinese contemporary art. This network consists of multiple British communities and their Chinese counterparts: academics, artists/curators and other industry professionals. To achieve this, we have created a project website and launched it in January 2021, just months after our project started in September 2020. At the time of submitting this report, the website has attracted 763 visitors and 1,698 views. According to the analytics by the website host WordPress, most visitors and views have come from those in the UK and the US, followed by European countries such as Italy and France. Visits from China are slightly lower, mostly likely due to inaccessibility. The website serves 4 core functions: 1) it allows us to publicise the aims of our project and raise the visibility of our network; 2) it provides resources - access to academic journal articles and books - to researchers and others who are interested in the project's themes. For non-academic visitors, we are also in the process of producing a research report with theoretical analyses distilled into practical understanding. This, too, will be uploaded to the website once completed. Beyond textual resources, we have also uploaded our media outputs which consists of video recordings of interviews with Chinese artists and curators; 3) the website lists all our project activities, including announcements for our online media events, our conference (December 2022) and our journal's special issue publication (Fall 2023). With the conference participants' approval, we will also upload the booklet of abstracts; 4) and finally, it contains a contact form and all the email contact details of the team members. This website will be operational until 2025, at least 2 more years after the completion of our project. This will enable us to continue to share and exchange knowledge, connect with potential academic and industry partners, and finally, initiate new future collaborations and institutional visits. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021,2022 |
| URL | https://china-art-nationbranding.org/ |
| Description | China's Cultural Diplomacy and Nation Branding |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | As a part of our project, we hosted this two-day conference which brought together researchers and creative professionals to assess the political nexus between Chinese contemporary arts, diplomacy and nation branding. This event served multiple functions: first, as a natural way for us to network, thus fulfilling the original spirit of our project to multiply our professional relationships, to identify new collaborations, and to create more substantial and follow-up projects. Second, it provided a proper forum for timely intellectual debates, bridging the gaps of knowledge which exist due to a lack of interdisciplinary contemplation and reflection. Finally, it was also a way to publicise our research and disseminate our findings. 17 papers were presented, encompassing many fields including art, new media, advertising, television, performance art, and film. The conference also included an expert roundtable featuring Xiaowen Zhu, Director of esea contemporary, previously known as Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) in Manchester. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://china-art-nationbranding.org/participants/ |
| Description | Industry dialogue: Interviews with three leading art curators in China |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | In view of our main research project aims, we organised and hosted an evening of online interviews/expert panel with three past curators of the China Pavilion at the prestigious Venice Biennale: Peng Feng (2011 edition), Wang Chunchen (2013 edition), and Wu Hongliang (2019 edition). The event took place on 4 December 2021 via Zoom and was livestreamed via Bilibili in China. The event drew 60 participants in the UK and elsewhere, and 434 in China. The online interviews were conducted in Chinese by the project's CI Professor Jiang Jiehong. At the time of submitting this project report, the recording of the interview is being edited and subtitled with English translation. As soon as it is completed, it will be uploaded to the Resources page of our project website https://china-art-nationbranding.org/resources/ This was an impactful event given that one of our project's objectives is to enhance British-Chinese academic and industry collaborations and to maintain open dialogues with art professionals and cultural policy makers in China. During the discussion, the three Chinese curators shared their experiences and practices of organising the China Pavilion. The conversations explored the role of Chinese contemporary art and its functions at the intersection of artistic creativity, curatorial practices and nation branding. The experts provided the audience with engaging first-hand narratives and a closer look into the challenges of presenting Chinese contemporary art within an international and globalised art world. These obstacles include the burden of stereotypes and aesthetic expectations related to complex concepts such as "China" and "Chineseness". While academics and researchers have benefitted from the live event by gaining a Chinese perspective on art diplomacy and on the challenges of framing Chinese culture for foreign consumption, other participants who benefit from the events are practitioners outside of China who are currently organising China-themed exhibits or are considering art loan programmes. From the event, they are able to consider some of the curatorial differences between the Chinese and the Western models. Undoubtedly, curatorial context outside of China will be significantly different, however, the panel discussion was an important catalyst for identifying the key questions and challenges. An unanticipated outcome was the greater reach the event was able to achieve in China when livestreamed via the Chinese platform Bilibili. Our original face-to-face event was planned to take place at the Liverpool Biennial with a smaller group of artists and practitioners (30+), or in an art museum or art school in China. But due to the pandemic, we had to move the event online. Unexpectedly, this online activity allowed us to engage directly with a wider community in China. We are currently learning how to track impact (via a post-event short survey, perhaps) to better understand the extent to which Chinese audiences are learning and benefitting from our discussions. We are planning 1 or 2 similar online events in the future and we hope to document our impact in detail. Overall, the event: 1) Led to more traffic to our project website which offers more academic resources. 2) Sparked email inquiries from postgraduate students who joined our network. 3) Strengthened dialogues with the guest speakers' institutions. Since the three panel experts are also leaders of influential institutions in China (School of the Arts, Peking University; Central Academy of Fine Arts Art Museum; Beijing Fine Art Academy) the goal was to also initiate institutional visits to create new bilateral collaborations and partnerships. However, due to the continual travel restrictions to enter China, we are unable to plan any visiting trips. We aim, however, to continue this dialogue and nurture our relationships online, for example via our academic conference scheduled for December 2022. If funding allows, we hope to record this event and disseminate it via our website and via existing partners in China. This third outcome was precisely one the aims of the project: to create closer professional relationships with Chinese industry and academic partners. 4) Raised the interest of other museum professionals outside of China- such as a curator from a major museum in the Netherlands - who have emailed us for further information and requested followed-on discussions. 5) Helped us confirm the wide interest in and demand for such online events. With this newly-gained confidence, we are currently organising another expert panel discussion with the curator of the China Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022) Zhang Zikang and his artist team, including Liu Jiayu and Wang Yuyang. We hope this event will take place face-to-face at the biennale, but it will also be recorded, edited, translated into English and uploaded to our website. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://china-art-nationbranding.org/participants/ |
| Description | On the Politics of Time: Chinese Contemporary Art at the Venice Biennale |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | The PI of the project Dr Jenifer Chao presented this public lecture which examined two recent editions of the China Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. During the lecture, she detailed the curatorial practices behind these exhibitions and connected them to the theme of temporality by considering how these art exhibitions deploy a politics of time by mobilising China's dynastic past and its AI-powered present to engender images of the nation as a technology-driven country for the future. Specifically, she discussed how top-down state directives govern the mandated meanings of these exhibitions which often become an exercise in perception management for the country to orchestrate its international image, or its nation brand, to a foreign audience. Her lecture covered some of the major findings from this research project, including the instrumentalization of Chinese contemporary art for cultural diplomacy, nation building and nation branding, as well as its alignment with current cultural policies. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.lasalle.edu.sg/events/contemporary-arts-politics-time-venice-biennale-chinas-exceptional... |
| Description | The State of Suspension: Art during the Pandemic |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | As the CI of the project, Professor Jiang Jiehong has been examining the global movements of Chinese artists and artist exchanges as forms of art diplomacy. He was invited by the Silpakorn University in Bangkok to deliver this keynote speech at their 6th International Symposium on Art Craft and Design Resilience & Re-engagement on 7th February 2023. In his talk entitled 'The State of Suspension: Art during the Pandemic', Jiang shared his observation on the latest development of Chinese contemporary art, as well as the interruption of the cultural exchanges between China and the world. This one-day symposium presented 9 speakers (2 keynotes) followed by their two-day workshops with Silpakorn University students. Jiang also used this opportunity to visit the Bangkok Art Biennial where artworks by two Chinese artists (Qiu Zhijie and Xu Zhen) were being exhibited. During the visit, he also publicised our research network and discussed future collaborations with the event's participants. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |