Synopsis of Research in Shanghai (Sept 3 - Nov 30):
Jiang’s dissertation aims to investigate the discursive practices of non-fiction moving image arts, produced in China from late 1970s to the present time. Jiang will examine the ways in which documentary, as a mode of socially-engaged image-making, not only transforms Chinese post-socialist independent film and video art, but also is itself transformed by the country's accelerated and uneven development under the techno-economic conditions of the information age. While the state holds no official records of these oftentimes dissident contents, relevant archives are usually found among individual collectors. Jiang has established contact with four scholars/artists who reside in Beijing, Nanjing and Shanghai.