Research fellow at Kunstgewerbemuseum, Berlin, Germany
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Clare Chun-yu Liu is a Taiwanese artist filmmaker and researcher. Clare is Postdoctoral Researcher at Brno University of Technology in Czech Republic and Research Fellow at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in Germany. She has presented her research at Oxford University, Central Saint Martins and University College London, as well as her films at the ICA London, EXiS, Image Forum Festival and Kasseler Dokfest. Her article on the Brighton Pavilion has been published by the British Art Network.
Research interests:
As an artist filmmaker and researcher, I have been interested in the Chinese diaspora based on my familial experience: my father is from a Chinese family in Indonesia and escaped the Communist Purge in 1960s by moving to Taiwan, whilst my mother’s family relocated to Taiwan with the Nationalists at the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1940s. 13 years ago, I myself migrated to the UK for a new chapter of life. Informed by my personal background, my practice explores identity in terms of fluidity and subjectivity with a focus on oral history and lived experience to challenge the grand narratives of how to look back at history. Visually, I extensively employ familial archival photography in my films as a way to explore the relation of the personal and historical. In my earlier films, I investigate the Chinese Indonesian and Nationalists diasporas, interweaving my families’ stories and looking into works by Stuart Hall, Ien Ang and Rey Chow.
Since my now completed practice-based Fine Art PhD, I have been re-interpreting chinoiserie from a postcolonial and diasporic perspective through fiction filmmaking. I write new narratives of film scripts where historical individuals from Britain, China and Taiwan review and converse about chinoiserie artefacts from their perspectives: what is Chineseness as an identity and as a visual language as in chinoiserie? This fictional ethnographical approach is informed by my historical research so as to create new historiographies. Trinh T. Minh-ha’s postcolonial thinking including poetic writing and dealing with ambiguity has been essential to my recent and ongoing practice-based research. The project I wish to present at, share with and contribute to ARCHIVO will be an exciting extension of my long-term interest in the Chinese diaspora and archival photography.
Academic experience:
2024-2025 Postdoctoral Researcher, Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology, Czech Republic
2024-2025 Research Fellow, Kunstgewerbemuseum (Museum of Decorative Arts) Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany
2023-2024 Lecturer in Fine Art, University of Bolton, UK
2020 Visiting Lecturer, BA Media Production, Coventry University, UK
2019 Visiting Lecturer, BA Film Production, Regent's University, UK
2018-2019 Associate Lecturer, Manchester School of art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
Professional Experience:
2023 Peer reviewer, Journal for Artistic Research
2019-2022 Professional Mentor, Professional Mentoring Scheme, University of the Arts London, UK
2020 Conference responder, Call and Response - Research Student Presentations, RCA, Greenwich University and the NAFAE network, UK/online
2019 Panel Chair, Interdisciplinary Imaginations, Critical Confrontations: New Voices in Postcolonial Studies Symposium, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK
