Huanzhi Zhang

Huanzhi’s research sits in the specialism of contemporary art curatorial studies, with a specific focus on analysing the trajectory of digital curation developments in Shanghai and London occurring between 2020 and 2023.

Prior to this, art institutions centred their curatorial models and exhibition frameworks around the physical presentation of artworks in physical, architecturally defined spaces. However, the global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted this long-established convention, resulting in the temporary closure of art institutions worldwide. Consequently, art institutions – as producers of cultural identities and centres of creative exchange – found themselves compelled to rethink, revise, and reframe their curatorial strategies, prompting the rapid launch of online curatorial programmes as a response to the crisis. While the momentum of digital curation subsequently declined in London after the lifting of lockdown measures in 2021, it continued to flourish in Shanghai as intermittent lockdowns persisted until June 2023. Huanzhi’s study delineates the distinct trajectories across the two locales through a comparative study, identifying and analysing the complex interplay of external influences and internal motives that drove this disparity.

Huanzhi's thesis traces early developments of digital curation in Shanghai and London, describing the conditions that gave rise to the pre-pandemic digital landscapes in both cities. It then scrutinises a selection of digital curatorial projects launched by institutions, organisations, and independent practitioners that took place from 2020 to 2023. Employing an ethnographic perspective, Huanzhi’s study draws on fieldwork undertaken at various sites in both for-profit and nonprofit sectors to examine the evolution of digital curation over the period. By identifying the curatorial conundrums that were posed by the pandemic, the investigation reveals vulnerabilities and deficiencies within these cultural institutions. It then assesses whether digital curation has actually become a long-term strategy integrated into prevalent exhibition frameworks and curatorial discourse. Lastly, it considers the contemporary art world as a type of assemblage, with digital curation as an integral component, exploring how digital curation is deterritorialising the assemblage by offering new pathways that can circumvent traditional institutional structures. Thus, assemblage theory is used to analyse shifts in power dynamics within the contemporary art world. It also utilises actor-network theory, tracing digital curation as an actor, examining its interactions and influences with other actors.

Huanzhi argues that with the advancement of digital technologies and the influence of the COVID-19 outbreak, digital curation has been able to colonise a broader spectrum of curatorial practices, extending beyond the narrow notion of curating digital art. The hybridity enabled by digital curation methods and associating concepts dissolves the distinct division between virtual and physical realms. By analysing institutions’ responses, adjustments, and reactions, Huanzhi’s study presents digital curation’s challenges to previously dominant institution-centric exhibition frameworks and curatorial discourse, and how institutions reacted in response. Critical examination of digital curation’s trajectory allows this study to identify the previously existing boundaries that it has broken and new thresholds it has established.