​ © 2023 C. Liu

Clare Chun-yu Liu 劉純聿 is a UK-based Taiwanese artist filmmaker and researcher. Clare is interested in reviewing history in relation to diasporic experience and postcolonial thinking. She explores oral history and lived experience in the form of fiction and nonfiction to challenge the grand narratives. Also intrinsic to Clare’s practice is her experimentation with the textual and visual, narrative writing and filmmaking, theory and practice.


Funded by the Vice-Chancellor Scholarship at Manchester School of Art, her recently completed practice-based fine art doctoral research reinterprets English chinoiserie from a postcolonial and personal/Taiwanese perspective. She argues for notional ethnography, a postcolonial strategy of fictional interlocution that generates new historiographies. Through the methodology, historical individuals are cast as film characters and discuss, argue with and question each other about the chinoiserie artefacts within sight in the artist films.


Based on her familial background, Clare has also been exploring the Chinese diaspora and working with the personal stories of diasporic individuals. Her work analyses the relationship between personal and national history, life as a construction of historical events and ultimately how individuals live a life in a time of social and political turbulence.​

​Email: clareliu.uk@gmail.com

​Instagram: @clarechunyuliu


Education
2023  

PhD Practice-based Fine Art (Vice-Chancellor Scholarship)
Manchester School of art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Thesis title: Reinterpreting English Chinoiserie from a Postcolonial and Personal/Taiwanese Perspective: Creating New Narratives through Art Practice ​ [download link forthcoming]


2015

MFA Fine Art

Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London, UK


2012

MA Art and Design Studio Practice (Departmental Scholarship)

Loughborough University, UK


2010

BA English Literature

Soochow University, Taipei, Taiwan


Lecturing

2018-9    
Associate Lecturer, Manchester School of art, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK


Guest Lecturing / Talk

2023

Roundtable Discussion, esea contemporary, Manchester, UK
Asia Pacific Film Festival, the University of Central Lancashire, UK


2020       

BA Media Production, Coventry University, UK


2019      

BA Film Production, Regent's University, UK


Teaching Qualification
Associate Fellowship with Higher Education Academy, UK


Conference Presentations / Seminars
2022

East South East Asian Artists Northwest Roundtable, UK


2020       

Contesting Historiography of Cultural Heritage Sites

Association of Critical Heritage Studies Biennial Conference, University College London

Opening up Spaces: Heterotopia as a Postcolonial Strategy

Winter Symposium, Nordic Summer University​​ at Wrocław University, Poland


2019       

Challenges and Experiences in Reinterpreting Cultural Heritage Sites

Contemporary Art in the Heritage Experience, Newcastle University, UK 

Interdisciplinary Autumn School - Asia and Europe: Discourse, Circulation and      
Representation​, Asien-Orient-Institut, Zürich University, Switzerland
Summer Academy Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway ​


2018

Self-representation in chinoiserie: an investigation

Decolonising the Self: Representations of the Self in Art Theory and Practice across Cultures, SOAS, University of London, UK
'Here'...'There' / East and Southeast Asia Diasporic Act

Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, UK [a collaboration between Central Saint Martins and Asian/Pacific/American Institut at New York University] [along with a student crit with BA Fine Art students from across UAL] 

Artistic Research Will Eat Itself Research Workshop, Plymouth, UK 


2016/7    

The Nationalists' relocation to Taiwan: staying, going and diaspora
• International History of East Asia Seminar, China Centre, University of Oxford
, UK [along with screening of A love story: between the strait and A complete story: between the strait] 
• Engagement and Identity, American Association of Chinese Studies
Conference, Pepperdine University, California, USA
• Joint East Asian Studies Conference, SOAS
, University of London, UK 


2016       

Chinese diaspora, oral history and video art

Routes of Difference: Migration in Artistic, Academic and Media Discourses, Catholic University of Portugal, Lisbon, Portugal

Forum for Young Professionals Europe Lab, Zagreb and Vukovar, Croatia 
Oberhausen Film Festival Seminar, Germany 

 

Professional Experience
2019 - 2022
Professional Mentor, Professional Mentoring Scheme, University of the Arts London, UK​


2020       

Conference responder, Call and Response - Research Student Presentations, RCA, Greenwich University and the NAFAE network, virtually/UK


2019       

Panel Chair, Interdisciplinary Imaginations, Critical Confrontations: New Voices in Postcolonial Studies Symposium, University of Leeds, UK         ​​


2018       

Panel Chair, Creative Images Conference, University of Manchester, UK

Organising Committee, Postgraduate Arts & Humanities Centre Symposium, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Panel Chair, Manchester Metropolitan Postgraduate Research Conference, UK


Grants/Scholarships

2022

PAHC Research Degree Fund, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK


2020       

Research Support Award, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

PAHC Research Degree Fund, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 


2019       

PAHC Research Degree Fund, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 

Conference Fund, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 


2018       

PAHC Research Degree Fund, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 

2017       

Vice-Chancellor Scholarship, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 

2016       

Junior Scholar Travel Grant, American Association of Chinese Studies, USA 

2012       

Departmental Scholarship, School of the Arts, Loughborough University, UK

Awards and Residencies
2018      

Visual Research Network Residency, UK


2016       

Bloomberg New Contemporaries, London, UK – shortlisted

2015       

neo:artprize, Bolton, UK – finalist
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, London, UK – shortlisted


Selected Screenings and Exhibitions
2023

Asia Pacific Film Festival, the University of Central Lancashire, UK


2022

Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival, Kassel, Germany

New Art Exchange Open, Notthingham, UK 

Clare Chun-yu Liu artist films screening, de Art Center/Inky Pixel Press, Guangzhou, China


2021  

Istanbul Experimental Film Festival, Turkey

Busan International Video Art Festival, South Korea    

SMIF: Asian Film and Festival in Spain, on-line

EX-iS, Experimental Film and Video Festival in Seoul, South Korea

Image Forum Festival, Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagoya, Japan

Experimental Forum, USA [Honourable mention]  


2020       

BIDEODROMO International Experimental Film and Video FestivalBilbao, Spain


2019    ​   

DOBRA Festival Internacional de Cinema Experimental, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Filmfest Bremen, Bremen, Germany

Leiden Short Film Festival, Leiden, the Netherlands


2018       

Constellations: Screenings from the ‘archive’ and beyond, Asia-Art-Activism Research Network, Raven Row, London, UK

The Research Stomach, KARST, Plymouth, UK


2017       

Minikino Film Week, International Short Film Festival Bali, Bali, Indonesia

Migration Film Festival, The Front, New Orleans, USA

Closing the Distance, Bundoora Homestead Art Centre, Melbourne, Australia

OverFlow, Performance Studies International Conference, Hamburg, Germany


2016       

Routes of Difference – Migration in Artistic, Academic and Media Discourses, Goethe Institut, Lisbon, Portugal

Both Sides Now III: Final Frontiers, British Council Hong Kong, China; Boom Art Gallery Bar, Hong Kong, China; Oi!, Hong Kong, China; Fabrica, Brighton, UK; Exeter Phoenix, UK; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, UK; Phoenix Leicester, UK; Taipei International Video Art Exhibition,Taiwan; Song Eun ArtSpace Seoul, South Korea; Ray Art Center Shanghai, China; Minsheng Art Museum Beijing, China; VAFA International Video Festival, Macau, China

Neo: artprize 2015, neo: gallery, Bolton, UK

Artist Video Screenings, Charing Cross Library, London, UK

2015       

Art Parlour: On Tour, MK Gallery, Milton Keynes, UK

Chelsea Salon, Penarth Studios, London, UK

2014       

UK Young Artist Leicester Festival, UK

When Arts Meet, Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre, Hong Kong, China


Interviews

2022

Images Forum Festival, Japan

2016       

Artist Liu Chun-yu explores Chinese diaspora, China Information Center

2015       

Chun-yu Liu, Stigmart VideoFocus Special Issue NKT

 

Collection

VIDEOTAGE Media Art Collection, Hong Kong, China