Opening Reception—Exploding and Netting: A Somatic Archive of Transpacific Movement

Thursday, February 29, 2024 at 12:00pm
College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center

FREE!

An opening reception and celebratory luncheon for the exhibition Exploding and Netting: A Somatic Archive of Transpacific Movement.

Wesleyan University and other New England academic institutions have been immersed in transpacific interactions with China since their foundations. What does it mean to travel, to be forced to travel, or hold potential movements between China and New England and vice versa? How do such memories, legacy, and violence flow in Wesleyan’s archives, architecture, and bodies of past and present students? Exploding and Netting: A Somatic Archive of Transpacific Movement grapples with Wesleyan’s and other institutions' involvement with China from the nineteenth century to the present through archives that leave traces of this interaction. Sensing the textual, architectural, and bodily archives via the perspectives and experiences of current Chinese international students, this exhibition presents mixed-media artworks by Loren Yuehan Wang ’25 to respond to the institutional history of transpacific travel by transgressing and solidifying identities. The exhibition was curated by Yijing Lai ’24 and Xiran Tan ’24 as part of a tutorial in curatorial practice led by Exhibitions Manager Rosemary Lennox and Associate Director of Visual Arts Benjamin Chaffee ’00. Exhibition support provided by the College of East Asian Studies.

The exhibition is on display through Saturday, May 25, 2024 and will be closed from Saturday, March 9 through Monday, March 25, 2024.

For more information, please visit the College of East Asian Studies Gallery at Mansfield Freeman Center website.

Image: Loren Yuehan Wang, A Cross-Pacific Effect (expert), 2022, print on paper, 15.7 x 23.6 inches, courtesy of the artist.