Nathan Li
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Nathan Li's MPhil/PhD Art research project
Reconstructed Utopia: The Metapicture of Ballroom Culture in China
This practice-based research reflects the rebuilding process of a fragile cultural ecology, how resistance will be manifested when uncertainty and absence and forced anonymity become the norm.
Nathan's earlier research juxtaposed the flow and development of homophobic ideologies with the history of queer literature in China, and he questioned the validity of cultural definitions. This research focuses on all aspects of queer culture, from popular culture to the frequent use of memes in everyday life, as well as specific forms of social and ballroom organization that will appear as references (visual or textual) in art practice.
From the work The Unwritten Words (2021), live performance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania U.S.A.
Through video, sound, installation and performance, the study reflects the self-resilience of Chinese queer culture in the face of external and internal pressures. Nathan's works are full of black humor and realistic satire. He points out that the core of comedy is tragedy, just as the underground ballroom community he focuses on is an alternative utopia under the cruel reality. The writing component of this study will explore a new interpretive research framework and narrative deconstruction, which will be opposed to the tradition of academic writing and experimental.
The research will hope to be a voice, a embodiment of monumentality, a gesture of resistance, an artistic intervention, the healing of historic wounds, and, ultimately, a safe, shareable, ever-expanding utopia.