Reinterpreting English Chinoiserie From A Postcolonial And Personal/Taiwanese Perspective: Creating New Narratives Through Art Practice

Liu, Chun-Yu (2023) Reinterpreting English Chinoiserie From A Postcolonial And Personal/Taiwanese Perspective: Creating New Narratives Through Art Practice. Doctoral thesis (PhD), Manchester Metropolitan University.

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Abstract

This PhD investigates how to reinterpret English chinoiserie from a postcolonial and personal/Taiwanese perspective through art practice. I explore aspects of history to scrutinise British/European receptions of China and Chineseness as a visual language in eighteenth-century English chinoiserie. This leads me to investigate eighteenth-century Sino-British/East-Europe historiographies to interrogate how to review relevant pre-colonial Sino-British contact. I also review Chineseness as an identity in relation to Taiwanese history, diaspora and my art practice. My findings reject a uniform insider Chineseness and instead point to plurality and subjectivity. That is multiple and personal perspectives from which to revisit history – which informs my approach in which to respond to chinoiserie. I create notional interlocution, a new postcolonial strategy of fictional (auto)ethnography, through contextualising concepts of constructivism, poststructualism, art-based research, and aspects of postcolonial theory. Via this new methodological framework, I make three artist films regarding the chinoiserie collections at the three chosen cultural heritage sites: This is China… explores the chinoiserie interior at the Royal Pavilion Brighton; Another beautiful dream investigates the Chinese wallpaper at Harewood House; and A note on Delftware interrogates the Delftware vases at Chatsworth House. My films are open-ended, yet critical and philosophical, and create new spaces in which to revisit chinoiserie. The films form a trilogy for their shared exploration of English chinoiserie but can be considered independently and seen as independent works.