NYU Institute of Fine Arts Chinese Art Research Initiative
Asymmetry HQ. Photo by Studio Bergini. Courtey of Asymmetry.
NYU Institute of Fine Arts in Manhattan, which received a $525,000 gift to support research on Chinese diasporic art.
New York University's Institute of Fine Arts has received a $525,000 gift from Asymmetry to establish a new academic initiative focused on Chinese and Sinophone diasporic art. The partnership will support two PhD fellowships for research examining how migration, cultural exchange and the movement of artists and ideas have influenced visual culture across different regions. Fellows will also have opportunities to conduct collections and archival research through the Institute's network of New York museums and cultural organizations. The initiative will include an annual symposium bringing together researchers, curators, students and other specialists to examine Chinese and Sinophone diasporas through comparative perspectives. Asymmetry, a London-based nonprofit founded in 2020, will also connect the fellows with its international academic and cultural network.
Asymmetry Establishes New Initiative to Advance the Study of Chinese Diasporic Art at the Institute
The Institute of Fine Arts at New York University (IFA) is pleased to announce a $525,000 gift from Asymmetry to establish a new partnership dedicated to advancing scholarship on Chinese diasporic art through a transnational and comparative framework. The Asymmetry Chinese Comparative Diasporas Lab Initiative will support doctoral research and scholarly exchange examining Chinese and Sinophone diasporas in relation to geographies and communities around the world.
At the center of the initiative will be the support for two Asymmetry PhD Fellowships in the Comparative Study of Chinese Diasporic Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, forming the foundation of a new Chinese Comparative Diasporas Lab model. The fellows will pursue original research that expands conventional geographic and disciplinary approaches to the study of Chinese diasporic art, while drawing on the IFA’s strengths in Asian, African, South American, Caribbean, and contemporary art. The initiative will encourage students to consider the movement of artists, objects, ideas, and cultural practices across regions and to explore how migration and exchange have shaped visual culture.
The fellows will also have opportunities to engage with the IFA’s extensive network of museum and cultural partners in New York. Through collections and archival research and potential curatorial projects, students will be able to connect art-historical inquiry with the study of primary materials and museum practice. The IFA’s longstanding relationships with institutions including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art offer an especially rich environment in which to undertake this work.
An annual symposium on comparative Chinese and Sinophone diasporas will provide a public and scholarly forum for the initiative. Bringing together researchers, curators, students, and other specialists, the symposium will explore intersections among migration, histories, artistic exchange, and visual culture across different geographic contexts. The fellows will have the opportunity to present their research alongside established voices in the field, fostering new conversations and collaborations and contributing to a growing body of scholarship on diasporic art.
Alongside their placements at the IFA, the fellows will also become part of Asymmetry's wider community of curators, scholars, artists, writers, researchers and cultural practitioners. Joining a close-knit cohort of fellows and scholars, they will participate in an ongoing program of research, conversation and peer exchange across Asymmetry's international network of partner museums and universities. Throughout the PhD, the fellows will also be encouraged to develop and present their own research through Asymmetry's program to test ideas publicly while contributing to discursive or exhibitionary programs, critical inquiry, research, writing and exchange.
"Area studies gave us the categories. The more interesting work now is tracing what moves across them — and the premise of this initiative is that Chinese diasporic art gains its fullest meaning in relation to other histories of migration, exchange, and visual culture," said Joan Kee, Judy and Michael Steinhardt Director of the Institute of Fine Arts. "The IFA's strengths in Asian, African, South American, and Caribbean art history make it an unusual place to test that premise rigorously. We are deeply grateful to Asymmetry for sharing that conviction."
“Art histories have never developed within fixed geographic boundaries, and neither should the scholarship that engages with them,” said Yan Du, Founder of Asymmetry. “Our partnership with the Institute of Fine Arts creates new conditions for emerging scholars to pursue research across geographies, disciplines and cultural contexts. By bringing together the IFA’s academic community and Asymmetry’s international network, we hope to enable ambitious comparative research that is rigorous, expansive and responsive to the ways in which artists, ideas and histories move across the world.”
The IFA joins an established line of institutional and academic partnerships with Asymmetry to support curatorial work and scholarly research alongside Chisenhale Gallery, London, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, London, Goldsmiths, University of London, London, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, SculptureCenter, New York, and Tate Modern, London.
Asymmetry supports curators and researchers with Chinese and Sinophone backgrounds through fellowships, scholarships, public programs, research, and a specialist library. We promote meaningful exchange between creative practitioners, institutions, and publics to enable generative research, collaboration, and participation. Through five core activities—curatorial fellowships, academic scholarships, public programs, research, and a specialist library—we offer career-enhancing opportunities while strengthening visibility for curators and researchers who remain underrepresented in the arts and cultural sector. By building partnerships with institutions, art spaces, and universities, we work to expand the landscape of curatorial practice and academic research, contributing to more equitable, inclusive and plural futures for contemporary art. Launched in 2020 by Yan Du, philanthropist and patron of the arts, Asymmetry is an independent non-profit organization based in London.
Source: NYU The Institute of Fine Arts
