(Re)made in China: material (dis)connections, art, and creative reuse

Abstract

"The reuse and recycling of materials that were made in China has a short history in the daily activities of private households worldwide, but a long history in art, craft, and design. Focusing on the practices of artists, craftspeople, and designers, and their re-evaluation of unwanted, pre-used, and discarded materials, this volume presents new research on material culture from China, one of the world's leading waste-receiving and waste-producing countries, in a global context. Through the lens of an ecocritical history of art, craft, and design, it studies creative engagements with matter related to aspects of (dis)connectivity, considering how the meanings and values attributed to objects and raw materials can change radically as they travel across historical and cultural divides."--Publisher's website.

Contents

Material (dis)connections, art, and creative reuse : an introduction to (Re)made in China / Anna Grasskamp -- Chinese procelain remade : a projectile point on the Northwest Coast of America / Dawn Odell -- From automations to hairpins : the reuse of dragons as flying serpents in the Imperial Workshops of Emperor Qianlong / Pai Yen-tzu -- Laughing at the past : resignifying "waste" in early Republican China / Monica Klasing Chen -- Folding, unfolding, and refolding : the transcultural remaking of Chinese skirts in Western fashing, 1890s-1950 / Mei Mei Rado -- Re-make : an artist's and pedagogue's perspective from Shanghai / Marcela Godoy -- Used and reused : cardboard as the unlikely hero in creative space making in Hong Kong / Evelyn Kwok -- Regenerating Taiwan's cultural memory : waste reimagined in the artworks of Rahic Talif and Yeh Wei-Li / Tseng Shao-Chien -- On the ground of the discarded : integrating ecology and socially engaged public art in Chongqing / Meiqin Wang -- Why don't we go to an exhibit that stinks? : response to Wang's "on the ground of the discarded" / Simone M. Müller -- "High prices for recycling" : thinking about art history with photographer Yao Lu / Lisa Claypool -- A political ecology of reuse : challenging the concept of "sacred waste" from an Asian perspective / Valentina Gamberi.