Ziyue Shang 商子岳

I’m an ethnographer and performance artist currently pursuing a Master in Design Studies in Publics at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. Before that, I graduated from University College London (UCL) with first-class honours in Global Humanitarian Studies.

My research interests lie at the intersection of multimodal anthropology, body/embodiment, queer/gender politics, and the socialist state. My current work explores the formation of queer subjectivities in relation to socialist moral ideology, asking how state-produced moral values are embodied, negotiated, and unsettled in everyday life. I am exploring ways of responding to this question through ethnographic research on performance art (行为艺术 xingwei yishu) and live art (现场艺术 xianchang yishu) communities, while also attending to broader forms of queer public culture, including ballroom, dance, digital shorts, and other vernacular media and bodily practices.

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Performance Art 行为&现场

1. Everything is FINE!
2. Solidarity is the POWER 团结就是力量
3. Lipstick
4. Hand in Hand, At Play
5. Underground Park Mushroom Hop
   
6. Jumping the Long Rope
7. Same but Difference (Spring Equinox)
   
8. Towards Dirt
9. Go Round and Round
10. Radio Calisthenics

Voice from the Community 社区&声音

1. ‘Praising‘ Colonialism
   
2. Qingdao Zhongshan Road
3. Hague Mothers
   
4. Lines That Almost Meet
5. Vagina Monologue Series (in-progress)
   

Creative Writing 写作

1. Autoethnography (in-progress)

Public Engagement & Academic Conference 展览&会议&其他

1. Rebuilding: Sites/Sights of East Asia: 31th Columbia GradCon
2. EXPERIMENT: Rethinking Representation, Methods, & Knowledge American Ethnological Society (AES) Spring Conference
3. DIRT: NSSR Anthropology Graduate Student Conference
   
4. IMPACT: Durham Anthropology Graduate Student Conference

Selected Projects

Everything is FINE!
Everything is FINE!
Non-Protest / Collective Public Performance

A group of people entered the street, holding signs, chanting, and marching toward Harvard Yard. Everything looked normal. If I had been passing by, I might just asked, “What are they protesting?” But this time, I was inside the line. We were chanting, “Everything is Fine!” while carrying signs that said “Fine,” “Chill,” “It’s OK,” and “Nothing.” It was a protest for NOTHING!

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Solidarity is POWER
Solidarity is POWER
Collective Public Performance

One, Two, One. One, Two, One.
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Lipstick
Lipstick
Performance Art

I don’t know what lipstick is; red pigment and blank canvas were the best toys of my childhood.
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Radio Calisthenics
Performance Art / Video Project

I loved radio calisthenics at school because it was the closest my body was allowed to come to dance.
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Towards Dirt
Towards Dirt
Vertical Cinema / Performance Art

Some people are always collecting dirt. They turn their bodies toward the ground.
And I, too, turned my body toward the ground.

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Jumping the Long Rope
Jumping the Long Rope
Performance Art

People instinctively join the long-rope skipping, even in an experimental music live, just as they once did at school.
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Hand in Hand, At Play
Hand in Hand, At Play
Performance Art

Holding hands. Let’s explore the site from its edges!
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‘Praising’ Colonialism
‘Praising’ Colonialism
Photography Archive / Zine

It all starts with someone said, “Thanks to German for modernizing Qingdao.”
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Hague Mother
Hague Mothers
Essay Film / Video Essay

Why are mothers abunducting their own child?

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