Received Sylff fellowship in 2022
Academic supervisor: Gray Tuttle and Ying Qian
Current affiliation: PhD Candidate, East Asian Languages and Cultures
I am a PhD candidate on the History-East Asia track, focusing on visual culture across the Tibetan Plateau. My research interest covers Tibetan cultural productions including art (both traditional and contemporary), photography and film. I have written on topics such as the representation of Tibetan people in portrait photography since the twentieth century, the use of traditional religious vocabulary in contemporary art and the indexicality of photographic technology in Tibetan cinema.
My current project focuses on Tibetan portraits under the influence of photographic technology. With training in comparative media, I approach the act of portrait making, image forming and photo taking as visual, cultural and social practices and attempt to place them in a context that is closely correlated with the evolution of Chinese visual culture and social environment.
Before joining the doctoral program, I received my BA in Art History from Barnard College and MA in Tibetan Studies from EALAC at Columbia University.
With the help of the SYLFF Grant, I was able to travel to various archives and museums for preliminary research on photographic materials and conduct interviews with interlocutors.
