Renomads: Performative Representation as a Form of Resistance
This project puts forward the mobilization of representation as the political discourse from the Chinese government to reshape the socio-ecological form and order that are distinct from Tibetan pastoralism in the Zoige Wetland areas. The Zoige Wetland is always represented by ‘others’ from the shared water source for surrounding tribes to the concept of resource and 'carbon pool' shaped by national green development.
This project will investigate the practice of representation of Zoige Wetland entangled with political, cultural and socio-ecological relations, and try to develop a performative representation as a form of resistance for local people to confront ongoing separations from their ancestral knowledge.
Key details
Supervisors
Gallery
More about Mingxin
Biography
Mingxin Li is an environmental architect and researcher focusing on the practice and modes of representation of Zoige Wetland. Before developing his PhD project at the RCA, he speculated the mode of the symbiosis of bacteria and stromatolite in Salar de Llamara through mapping, animation and fiction writing, which was his graduation project developed from Lithium Triangle Research Studio of MA Environmental Architecture. Currently, he is a spatial researcher of G.I.T. (Territorial Research Group) and studio INTERPRT.
His collective and personal works have been exhibited at the Helsinki Biennial 2023, Galeria Municipal do Porto, Färgfabriken, Het Nieuwe Instituut, Design Chongqing Biennale 2022, and Tongji University.
Degrees
BA Environmental Design, Jiangnan University, 2018.
MA Environmental Architecture, Royal College of Art, 2020.
Exhibitions
(2023) INTERPRT: ‘Colonial Present: Counter-mapping the Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in Sápmi’. Helsinki Biennial 2023. HAM Helsinki Art Museum, Helsinki.
(2023) ‘Montanha Invertida’. Desejos Compulsivos. Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto.
(2023) ‘The Ends of The World’. Desejos Compulsivos. Galeria Municipal do Porto, Porto.
(2022) 'Towards a Symbiotic Mode of Development'. Design Chongqing Biennale 2022. Chongqing.
(2020) ‘The Ends of The World’. Lithium. Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam.
(2016) 'GREEN IS CREATIVE'. Tongji University, Shanghai.
Publications
'MICRO-ORGANISMOS NO DESERTO' in Lítio-Estados de Exaustão (Eds.) Francisco Diaz, Anastasia Kubrak and Marina Otero Verzier. Dafne Editora / Galeria Municipal do Porto, 2023.
'Microorganisms in the Desert' in Lithium: States of Exhaustion (Eds.) Francisco Diaz, Anastasia Kubrak and Marina Otero Verzier. Het Nieuwe Instituut / Ediciones ARQ, 2021.