From Bohemia to Britart – art students over 50 years

In the mid-1980s, Frith and Horne (1987) were describing the experience of British arts schools as, “an anachronism, with students desperately clinging on to attitudes to work and play, which had otherwise vanished” (p. 12). Among these attitudes were the importance of freedom and experimentation in one's work, the status of the artist as an outsider, and the superiority of art over other forms of activity, such as design. Despite huge social changes and contemporary concerns about the “instrumentalization” of arts policy and education (Singerman, 1999; Wilson, 2007), the article argues that the Romantic ideology of the artist is remarkably persistent, and continues to shape graduates' attitudes to their working lives. This in turn feeds into contemporary debates about the nature of cultural labour (Ross, 2003) and the role of the “artistic critique” (Boltanski & Chiapello, 2005), and, crucially, provides an empirically based view of these debates from the perspective of cultural workers themselves.     

Safeguard Civilization for the Future--China＇s achievements in the conservation of cultural heritage over the past three years

On the International Day for Monuments and Sites in April 2006, representatives from all industrial cities around China assembled in Wuxi, one of the birthplaces of modern China＇s industries, to discuss status quos and solutions for industrial heritage conservation. The Wuxi Recommendations, the consensus document reached at this historical event, calls for,     

‘Let us understand each other and work together in the child’s best interest’ – Exploring the narratives of newly arrived refugee parents in Sweden

Complex and multi-layered socio-economic and cultural challenges face refugee parents resettling in a new country. The aim of this study was to describe refugee mothers and fathers’ experiences of parenthood by lifting up their own voices, illuminating the challenges they face and laying the basis for designing interventions to provide well-informed and culturally tailored support programmes for families in need.The study combined narrative research with focus group discussions with 50 refugee mothers and fathers in Sweden. Data were analysed inductively using thematic analysis. The main theme identified: Navigating the changing landscape of parenthood, captured refugee parents’ experiences of navigating their parenthood through the new socio-political, cultural, and economic setting in Sweden.The study results demonstrated how acculturation challenges undermined the role of parents, threatened the family cohesion and led to alienation of children from their parents. Despite the plethora of challenges faced by families, parents struggling to navigate two differing cultural paradigms, envisioned a path of dialogue and reconciliation between newcomers and the host society as a way to foster true integration and understanding between immigrant and native communities.     

Subjectivity of the people in practice and means to actualize a new socialist culture in rural China: an ethnographic study of drama in Shaanxi’s rural regions in the 1960s

From the mid-twentieth century, the evolving tension between modernity and tradition has become a troublesome issue for the newly-established independent nation-states in Asia. With the ethnographic methodology of field study, this article retraces the drama practice in 1960s’ rural China and tries to reveal the practical formation and specifically, the operative mechanism with which the socialist new culture remolds and summons the subjectivity of People. In such practical process, the subjectivity of People is a key concept of socialist values and a leading principle of people’s everyday life in rural China, which contributes to the formation of a “new tradition” in practice. The “new tradition” has a profound influence on the pathway of the Chinese socialist development, and may also provide necessary reference to other Asian states.     

Guess Who’s Coming to the Oscars: Multicultural Breakthroughs in Black Panther and Other Recent Movies

The movie awards for 2018 were dominated by works by and about marginalized people who are underrepresented in contemporary movies. The movies use established forms of superficial, sensational, and escapist movie-making. The conventions of these “eye candy” forms contradict and undermine the serious adult significance of the works, in obedience to the commercial demands of the movie industry.     

Salute to Johannes Vermeer Jin Shangyi’s solo exhibition held in the Central Academy of Fine Arts

<正>Jin Shangyi’s new solo exhibition "Salute to Johannes Vermeer" was recently displayed at the Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), highlighting ...