My Fulbright Personal Statement & Statement of Purpose
I read through a ton of these when I was putting my application together. I found it really helpful to see how other applicants described their experiences leading up to Fulbright and how they were able to show a little of their personalties in very short essays packed with a lot of information, so I wanted to pay it forward!
One of the tips my FPA (Fulbright Program Adviser) gave me was to stand out in the committee members’ minds (Red Dinosaur Girl, anyone?). They read a lot of essays, so try to think of a couple vivid images that describe you. But don’t get too flowery, you’ve only got so much space!
Was that an enormous, shiny red dinosaur in a cage? Was that two enormous, shiny red dinosaurs? On the sidewalk? Yes. Yes, it was. I looked up into the fiberglass face of the dinosaur highest up—easily four times my size—and just stared as I wandered around the colossal cage on the main drag of 798 Art Zone, a quirky abandoned Bauhaus factory complex circa 1957 with sawtooth ceilings to let in maximum natural light to increase worker productivity, now chock full of iconic underground art.
This was my introduction to Chinese contemporary art. Having spent the previous three years steeped in a thoroughly traditional western art program, I especially looked forward to this outing, excited for the opportunity to see the art of a society so completely different from my own and hungry for new ideas for my own artwork. As an American delegate to Project IMUSE 2011, I spent ten days getting acquainted with many different facets of modern China and learning from the other delegates, students from top Chinese, US, and UK universities. I stayed in Beijing to begin my study abroad program that semester, and as I learned more about contemporary art in my Chinese Studies class, my fascination—and confusion—only grew. I began an internship at CCII International Design Center in 798 (just a few blocks down from my prehistoric pals), and learned more about the history of the district as I researched, translated, and gave tours of the center to English-speaking visitors. But, I asked my supervisor, where were the artists? To my disappointment, the community of artists that once flourished in 798 had gone the way of SoHo and been forced out of the reclaimed factory, now populated by international galleries and cafes with 70 RMB sandwiches, due to gentrification—and she didn’t know where to find them. I had to know more.
After returning, I designed a research project to further investigate the present conditions of Chinese artists and won an undergraduate international research grant for the summer of 2013. I lived among dozens of Chinese artists and a handful of foreigners in Feijiacun, a village on the outskirts of the city in Red Gate Gallery’s artist residency program. Ahh. There they are. Turns out, these days Beijing’s artists are mostly clustered together in tight-knit communities far from the city center in communities like Feiajiacun.
Twenty-three interviews; twenty-three lives; a combined total of hundreds of years of painting, drawing, successes, failures, personal transformations, and the transformation of the world around them as China changed before their eyes.
My head was spinning. I felt like I’d discovered a new universe. How had nobody heard their stories? When I got back home I wanted to tell the whole world, anyone who would listen. Well, I made a little headway, publishing a paper in the research journal Inquiry, delivering the keynote address at the annual meeting of my university’s Foundation Board about my life-changing experiences to make a case for funding international undergraduate research, and presenting twice at my university’s Undergraduate Research Conference.
The best part of the whole experience was the reaction from the audiences, hands down. So many people came up to me afterward—they were just as excited to learn about a side of China they’d never heard of as I was! I realized the massive potential contemporary art has for teaching westerners about Chinese life and culture, which puts a human face on the headlines—and that is so critical for coexisting on this hyper-connected planet. Fulbright would give me the knowledge I need and a platform to bring Chinese artists’ stories home.
As China continued to emerge from decades of isolation in the 1990s, Chinese contemporary art splashed into the international art world, which received it with enormous curiosity. Because of Chinese art’s long insularity and the great cultural divide, westerners were puzzled by the subject matter, and tried to interpret what they saw through the predominant lens with which the West had viewed China for so many years: politics. Now, having gained international recognition, Chinese artists are asserting themselves in the art world by drawing on Chinese art history and traditions to create a visual vocabulary uniquely their own. However, Chinese contemporary art is too often generalized by Western critics, scholars, and the public as implicitly or explicitly politically subversive. In order to begin to correct this vision and explore how artists are both declaring and examining their national identity rather than their politics through subject matter and use of materials, I will conduct one-on-one interviews with Chinese artists. This will follow up on preliminary research I completed last year as an artist-in-residence at Red Gate Gallery in Beijing. Under the supervision of Su Xinping, Dean of the School of Fine Arts at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, I will interview artists based in Beijing and maintain a multimedia blog with weekly updates of my findings for a western audience (see letter of affiliation). This experience will help prepare me for a career in museum education, teaching the public about the arts and culture of China.
What makes contemporary Chinese art unique is artists’ use of both Chinese and non-Chinese influences to engage with their culture and enter the global dialogue on art. The younger generation of artists, who grew up in the Deng Xiaoping era and later, eagerly accepted the opportunity to receive formal art training after universities were re-opened in the late 1970s, and were the first to begin their careers in a globalized China. Their work reflects this. “New ink” painting, practiced by Liu Guosong, Gu Wenda, and many others, is just one example of this phenomenon, blending ancient Chinese media, style, and subject matter with non-traditional methods and materials, to discuss “Chineseness” in art.
American scholars and curators are just beginning to analyze the trend of Chinese contemporary artists drawing upon their traditions in this fashion. In 2010 the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston held “Fresh Ink: Ten Takes on Chinese Tradition.” In 2013 the Metropolitan Museum of Art held a major Chinese contemporary art exhibit for the first time, “Ink Art: Past as Present in Contemporary China.”
Under the supervision of Su Xinping, Dean of the School of Fine Arts at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, I will interview contemporary artists based in Beijing. I will record the interviews and maintain a bilingual blog with weekly updates of my findings accompanied by photographs and video for an American audience. A blog is an ideal medium for reaching a wide audience, particularly young people. Most art museums use blogs as an educational tool to reach out to the public. Blog posts can easily be shared via social media. My blog will feature weekly updates of my findings, experiences, and insights, accompanied by photographs of my subjects in their studios and short biographies.
The preliminary research I completed summer 2013 prepared me for this project by expanding upon my intellectual framework, cultural knowledge, and practical interview skills, and also made me eager to go back as soon as possible to learn more. I received a research grant to travel to Beijing and participate in Red Gate Gallery’s artist residency program for my undergraduate thesis in international affairs. I lived and worked alongside hundreds of Chinese artists in Feijiacun and got to know several. The residency helped me make the connections I needed to find the best interview subjects for my project. The artists I spoke to last summer lamented that western journalists and critics misunderstood them. Therein lies the value of speaking to artists directly: artists are an indispensable authority on their influences and ideas, providing a correction for the misconceptions audiences may have if they are too disconnected from the artists’ self-awareness. Art history research methods are very compartmentalized: conducting field research—such as speaking directly to artists—is not within the purview of art history, which examines the work itself and its context. I will break from tradition and let Chinese artists tell me what their work is about. I will listen and be receptive to new or unexpected discoveries.
As I learned when I began research last summer, Beijing is home to the largest concentration of artists in China, as well as its most influential institutions, galleries, museums, and art academies. Beijing is the undisputed leader in Chinese contemporary art, but the primary factor driving my decision to center my research there is the strong base of connections I have built over three years beginning with my semester studying abroad in 2011. Building personal relationships and establishing trust over time is quite simply the fabric of Chinese society, and my network is primed for the success of this project, at this time, in this location.
While in Beijing, I will stay at the international student dormitory at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, audit two classes each semester in order to better understand my interviewees’ educational backgrounds, which differ so much from my own Western academic art education, and use my professors and classmates to expand my network. Su Xinping, a working artist with over twenty-five years of experience and a dean at CAFA, which has produced some of China’s best-known contemporary artists, is ideally suited to mentor me. He will meet with me on a weekly basis and be available to answer questions as they arise. Professor Su will also assist me by making valuable introductions.
I studied Mandarin for the equivalent of three years—two years at my university and one immersive semester abroad—and have an advanced spoken and written proficiency. To build upon my language skills, I will begin my grant period in China participating in Fulbright’s Critical Language Enhancement Award program in Harbin, and in the interim I will continue self-study.
Having lived in Taiwan for five years early in my childhood, and having worked, volunteered, studied, and carried out research in China, I have a sound understanding of Chinese culture. My ultimate goal is to work in museum education at an institution with a concentration in East Asian art. I want to contribute to the understanding of 21st century China and Chinese contemporary art in the west, and my proposed Fulbright project would help me refine my research interests. I plan to enroll in a PhD program to research contemporary Chinese art history. I’m looking at the M.A. program at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and Dr. Shane McCausland as a possible adviser. In the future I'd like to start an artist residency program inNew York or Boston for Chinese artists (an underserved population, as there are few residencies outside China that cater to Chinese speakers and not many residency programs within China)with bilingual staff to give Chinese artists a chance to see our top museums and meet American artists. Currently nothing like this exists, and I'd love to make it a reality. My proposed project will help me gauge interest in this type of program and learn how to best serve Chinese artists.
