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Paper short abstract:

Through the case study of the exhibition “Liangdeng: Notes from the Field”, this paper discusses how artistic exhibition practices can impact anthropological learning and understanding ethnography by creating an embodied, multi-sensory installation and becoming a continually evolving site itself.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to explore the ways in which contemporary art exhibitions can facilitate anthropological learning through the case study of “Liangdeng: Notes from the Field”. Held in 2019 in Beijing, China, this exhibition foregrounds a mountainous Miao village in rural China by showcasing the work of artist Huang Yugang (b. 1980), who has been residing in the village, working as an ethnographer and painting there since 2003. Additionally, it incorporates an entire piece of farmland in the gallery hall, transforming the white-cube space into an immersive, live installation that continuously triggers people’s embodied experience and imagination of 'the rural'.

Based on first-hand materials obtained from participant observation and interviews, as well as from my own working experience as the executive curator of the exhibition, this paper examines how anthropological knowledge of a particular place and its indigenous community is constructed, conveyed and perceived through artistic practices in the museum. In particular, it investigates how soil is used creatively and experienced sensorially in exhibition settings. By unfolding the multiple layers of soil as a material entity, an organic component of the surroundings, and an artwork, this paper argues that the learning potential of the exhibition is not only contained by the multi-sensory environment, but constantly generated in the evolving real scene it creates. It is also in this aspect that this paper attempts to propose a temporal perspective and consider the exhibition as a relational process that continues to have effect over time instead of an ended product.