Dr Shuxia Chen | UNSW Research

Fields of Research (FoR)

Art history, theory and criticism, Heritage, archive and museum studies, Visual cultures, Asian cultural studies

Biography

Shuxia Chen is a historian and curator of Chinese art and photography. Her research concerns cultural network, art collectives, and amateur and diasporic artistic practice in the Sinophone world. Her recent republished edited volumes include Wayfaring: Photography in Taiwan, 1950s–1980s (2025), A Home for Photography Learning: The Friday Salon, 1977–1980 (2024) and Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature (2024). Her recent curatorial projects include ‘The trace is not a presence …’ (2024), 'Chinese Toggles: Culture in Miniature' (2023), ‘Sentient Paper’ (2022) and ‘Wayfaring: Photography in 1970s–80s Taiwan’ (2021). Chen was the inaugural curator of the China Gallery and East Asian Collections at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum. She is currently a lecturer in the Master of Curating and Cultural Leadership at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design.

My Grants

David Scott Memorial Fellowship, State Library of New South Wales, 2022
Travelling Fellowship, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, 2020 (postponed)
China Professional Placement, Australia Council for the Arts, 2020
The Taiwan National Photographic Assets Curatorial Project Grant by Ministry of Culture, Taiwan, 2020
Publication grant, Gordon Darling Foundation, 2020
Visiting Scholar, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, Taiwan, 2017
Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Greater China Curatorial Residency Programme 2014
Travel Grant, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong, 2013
Community Grant for exhibition Make yourself at home, City of Sydney, 2012

My Qualifications

BBA (Hons) MVA (Hons) MA PhD

My Research Activities

Current research projects include:

The "Grey Zone": Self-Organised Photography Groups in Beijing, 1977-1988
Beyond Being Chinese: Representation of Chinese Australians in Community Museums
Amateur Photographic Practice and its Cultural Networks in Taiwan and Hong Kong, 1970s-1990s

My Research Supervision

Supervision keywords

Areas of supervision

Shuxia is currently accepting HDR students wishing to research on modern and contemporary Asian art and photography, socialist and post-socialist visual culture in Asia, art collectives and networks in Asia, amateur art practice, Asia and Asian-Australian exhibitions and history, curatorial practice and history in Asia and Australia. She welcomes postgraduate projects, including both practice-led and thesis-only candidates.