Curating Contemporary Art (MA)
Huanzhi Zhang
Empathy Loading is an online project which enquires into the potential of building empathetic relationships with networked non-humans. It reconsiders how systems of care for and with technology can improve these connections. Five artists have been invited to make creative proposals responding to the theme, one of which will be developed into a major online commission. All artworks will be available to interact with via Furtherfield’s website in May 2020.
An online seminar and digital publication accompanying the project will bring together an international panel of specialists and enthusiasts from the fields of digital art, science fiction & technology working at the crossroads of human and machine empathy.
Empathy Loading is curated by Maria Cynkier, Jiayi Du, Sakhi Gokhale, Eve Miller, Vanessa Wang, Huanzhi Zhang and Haseeb Zafar from the MA Curating Contemporary Art Programme as part of the Graduate Projects 2020, Royal College of Art. It has been developed in partnership with Furtherfield for their Citizen Sci-Fi: Love Machines 2020 programme.
Huanzhi Zhang is an independent curator, researcher and creative content producer. Her practice explores the shifting power dynamic in between locality and globality in the context of Chinese contemporary art ecology. Her Master of Arts dissertation Shanghai Biennial’s Position in the Paradigm Shifts: Rethinking Through the Lens of Titles looks into the Biennal’s negotiation in merging Western-originated institutional structures and curatorial models into Shanghai-based contemporary art localities.
For her graduate project, Huanzhi co-curated an online project in collaboration with Furtherfield titled Empathy Loading. Inspired by the the potential of building empathetic relationships with networked non-humans, it reconsiders how systems of care for and with technology can improve these connections.
With cultivated interests in online curating through the graduate project, Huanzhi is also researching on how private Chinese art institutions build resilience through online curatorial projects in response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the current stage.
Prior to coming to the RCA, Huanzhi gained her BFA degree at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and worked at China Star News (Chicago), ArtZIP (London) and Beijing Contemporary Art Expo (Beijing). Her recent publication Millenniums of DunHuang History will be published in 2020 by the 21st Century Publish House.
