Hong ZENG | Hong Kong Baptist University (original) (raw)

Papers by Hong ZENG

Research Handbook on Housing, the Home and Society, 2024

Since the 1980s, visual artists worldwide have been exploring the subject of the domestic. Howeve... more Since the 1980s, visual artists worldwide have been exploring the subject of the domestic. However, the discussion on a non-Western setting of house/home in visual arts is scarce. Aiming to fill this gap, and bringing more media of art into the discussion, this chapter selects three types of Chinese and Hong Kong artworks to unpack the subject in an East Asian context. The first section examines the practices of a group of Chinese artists in the early 1990s. By producing and exhibiting their works in apartments, these artists, illustrated by Song Dong and Xu Tan, conceptualize daily existence and critique the commercialization in urbanity in response to the then political and economic transitions in China. The second section analyses the art projects of two Hong Kong artists, Pak Sheung-chuen and Tang Ying-chi, exploring how Pak and Tang critique the encroachment of dwelling spaces by global capitalism in Hong Kong via different media and methodologies. The last section, through interpreting Pixy Liao’s and Feng Lin’s photography, unpacks the power dynamics in heterosexual relationships in East Asia revealed in the performance of women in domesticity. By employing visual analysis and contextual analysis, this chapter scrutinizes how political, capital and social forces shape the envisioning and (de)constructing of a home in East Asia.

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HERITAGE STUDIES, 2024

Scholars have recognised the significance of museums for establishing and maintaining national le... more Scholars have recognised the significance of museums for establishing and maintaining national legitimacy and shaping identity. Following the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China in 1997, tensions emerged between Chinese national identity and local Hong Kong identity. Drawing inspiration from studies of the role of museums in nation-building, research on Hong Kong museums, and Ackbar Abbas’ notion of cultures of disappearance, we conducted a comparative analysis of two Bruce Lee exhibitions at the Hong Kong Heritage Museum, the first of which was held between 2013 and 2020 and the second of which opened in November 2021. A comparison of these exhibitions demonstrates their distinct approaches to appropriating Lee’s legacy by drawing attention to changes in the associated narratives that reflect changes in the cultural and political climate. While both exhibitions engaged with the concept of disappear- ance, the earlier one did so by adhering to the conventional ‘East-meets- West’ framework, resulting in the effacement of Hong Kong culture. In contrast, the deployment of techniques of disappearance in the later exhibition challenged viewers’ perception of reality, prompting contem- plation of the self and identity by embracing strategies of disappearance while resisting a culture of disappearance. However, this came at the cost of downplaying Lee’s significance as a symbol of resistance.

Visual Communication, 2024

In recent decades, women have increasingly left their countries of origin, leading to an increase... more In recent decades, women have increasingly left their countries of origin, leading to an increase in transnational migration. Her Trajectory (2020), a project created by the author, represents women migrants’ paths, affects and experiences through counter-mapping and data visualization. Presented in web form (see https://hertrajectory.com/), this arts-based research project shows the migratory trajectories of 18 women participants by placing them and their personal objects onto a map, alongside their own object narratives. This article reflects on how the aesthetics and deployment of the textual, visual and kinetic designs re-humanizes migrants through their own narratives. The article also discusses how arts-based research could encourage participants to contribute their vernacular creativity to emotively transform migration studies.

European Journal of Cultural Studies, 2023

Accelerating globalisation and transnational migration in recent decades has led to an increasing... more Accelerating globalisation and transnational migration in recent decades has led to an increasing number of women migrants. This phenomenon calls for an investigation of women's identities as migrants. This article examines women migrants' sense of belonging through their everyday material practices. I draw on the concept of diasporic objects to examine the material objects that women migrants take with them, which function as prisms for their relationships to their national cultures. I adopt a theoretical framework of intimacy-including national intimacy, intimate culture and diasporic intimacy-to examine how women relate to their nations via a nation-family continuum. Through an analysis of 18 women migrants' narratives about their diasporic objects, I argue that the diasporic objects of women migrants articulate their domestic and familial life and connect them with their imagined national cultures. Their concept of 'home' is haunted by memories of war, patriarchal oppression and authoritarianism. I conclude by discussing how they use their diasporic objects to transform the idea of home into a rooted and transitive concept.

Feminist Media Studies, 2022

Since the 2000s there has been a rise in female spies depicted in both Hollywood and Chinese cine... more Since the 2000s there has been a rise in female spies depicted in both Hollywood and Chinese cinema. This article employs Kaplan’s familial model and Braidotti’s discussion of body to analyze the problematic relation between women and nation in three recent female-led sex- pionage spy films—Red Sparrow (2018), The Message (2009) and The Silent War (2012). Through situating these movies in the context of growing nationalism and political tension (i.e. “Cold War 2.0”) and post-feminist media texts emphasizing women’s liberated sexuality, we examine how Red Sparrow promotes American nationalism via advocating certain women’s bodily rights, whereas The Message and The Silent War promote Chinese nationalism by prioritizing women as state subjects rather than sexualized individuals. In these two Chinese films, the transcendence of the sexualized Chinese female spy- protagonist into revolutionary leader and symbolic mother figure is only realized through death by sexual and physical abuse. Although Red Sparrow asserts women’s sexual rights and challenges the notion of nation-as-family, the bodily rights it advocates operate within an individualist framework detached from the collective actions for women’s emancipation and empowerment. Red Sparrow also impli- citly supports the virtuous heterosexual conjugal relationship, which reinforces heterosexism and a decidedly state-centric hierarchical and political ordering.

Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies, 2020

In literature on modern urban life, a flâneur is a man who wanders seemingly aimlessly but with t... more In literature on modern urban life, a flâneur is a man who wanders seemingly aimlessly but with the intention of observing people or events in urban life and perhaps recording these observations in text or images. This article shows how contemporary women artists in Hong Kong-a city in late capitalism, perform the role of the flâneuse, the female counterpart of the flâneur. The article analyses Stella Tang's series of paintings Sauntering Through My City Series (2009-2016) and Annie Wan's ceramic works Looking For Poetry in Wanchai (2005) and Collecting Moonlight (2017). The article takes a nomadic nondialectical approach to explore how the two women artists practise their flâneurie, and how they transform such experiences into art projects that are different from the conventional flâneur art. I identify three aspects of the alternative representation of urban space in the works of the two flâneuses: reconfiguration of conception, the creative appropriation of alternative art forms and public engagement.

Journal of Visual Art Practice, 2020

The Umbrella Movement in 2014 drew attention to Hong Kong from across the world and triggered loc... more The Umbrella Movement in 2014 drew attention to Hong Kong from across the world and triggered local artists to respond to the current social and political issues through their art. This article discusses three socially engaged projects created in response to the Umbrella Movement by two women artists: Birthday Cakes (2014) and Love China Love Hong Kong Thick Toast (2015) by Phoebe Man, and Singing Under the Moon for Today and Tomorrow (2015) by Jaffa Lam. This article investigates how the aesthetic regime of these projects is realized from a feminist perspective. It argues that women artists can intervene in the male-dominated representations of borders and spatial politics in Hong Kong art to create an alternative by adopting feminist art tactics. Moreover, women artists can take a step further to reconsider the mechanism of identity politics and pay close attention to relational forms in socially engaged art to achieve the dissensus of aisthesis. After all, it is the construction of a community of dissensus that resonates with the spirit of the Umbrella Movement.

Asian Cinema, 2019

Many scholars of film studies have questioned the masculine notion of Euro-American auteurism for... more Many scholars of film studies have questioned the masculine notion of Euro-American auteurism for excluding women's film practice. This article shows how Ann Hui, a female director from Hong Kong, explores the female subjectivity of Xiao Hong, a famous Chinese woman writer, in the film The Golden Era (2014). Based on feminist theories of authorship and narratology, the article discusses Hui's identity as auteur by placing the production of this film in its specific political and cultural context; examines Hui's shaping of Xiao's translocal subjectivity by situating it within her embodied female experience; and elaborates on the narrative strategies used by Hui to provide an alternative mode of articulation that certifies her work as feminist cinema.