Global Art History, Surrealism, Cosmopolitanism, Chinese Studies, French Studies, Photography.
Association for Art History
MA Contemporary Arts China, Guest Lecturer
My doctoral research elaborated a re-writing of Surrealism's cultural memory as cosmopolitan, a movement that is not culturally specific, coalescing with geographies beyond Western borders via the photographic medium.
The thesis proves that the photographic medium was an indispensable tool and vision in the creation of a ‘Cosmopolitan Surrealism’, transcending the conceptions of national boundaries through multiple networks of global exchange harnessed by the Surrealists such as exhibitions, periodicals, photographic reproductions and the incorporation of non-western photographers into the movement.
On a theoretical level, cosmopolitan tensions between universality and cultural specificity are applied to the Surrealist movement. Notwithstanding, Cosmopolitanism became an empirical reality for Surrealist groupings around the world in contradistinction to a mere theoretical espousal. My research includes a chapter on Chinese photographer Lang Jingshan and interrogates his relationship with Man Ray. I also learnt Chinese to research-level alongside my PhD.
In September 2019, I began a Research Assistant post attached to the AHRC funded project "Postwar Urban Reconstruction in China, 1938-1958" spearheaded by Dr. Toby Lincoln. In March 2020, I commenced a postdoctoral fellowship in Chinese Contemporary Art at Birmingham City University.
My short-form book publication entitled 'Surrealism in Shanghai' was published by the Fondation Giacometti in 2022 and an expanded English co-edition was published in 202 with Hong Kong University Press/Fondation Giacometti. This book argues that Shanghai surrealism adopted a dialectical form, resonating with the modus operandi of the Parisian movement as well as China’s traditional belief system of Daoism. Reconciling the thought of Freud and Marx, Surrealism subsumed the multiple contradictions that divided Republican Shanghai, East and West, colonial and cosmopolitan, ancient and modern, navigating the porous boundaries that separate dream and reality. This was the first book-length publication dedicated to Chinese Surrealism.
I recently completed a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at Birmingham City University where I am currently a Research Fellow. This fellowship enabled me to complete a full-form draft monograph entitled 'Surrealism and the People's Republic of China' which is under contract with Routledge and due for publication in Autumn 2025.
Publications
Forthcoming Autumn 2025: Surrealism and the People’s Republic of China Under contract with Routledge.
December 2024: ‘Magical Metropolis: The Shanghai Surreal’ Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art Issue 11.23 https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/jcca_00100_2
November 2024: Surrealism from Paris to Shanghai Expanded English edition with Hong Kong University Press. https://hkupress.hku.hk/Surrealism_from_Paris_to_Shanghai
April 2023: Surrealism in Chinese Periodicals: Hedonism, Horror, and Shanghai’s Former French Concession Dada/Surrealism No.24 https://doi.org/10.17077/0084-9537.31894
March 2023: 'Lola Álvarez Bravo: Subverting Surrealist Photography in Mexico' Photography and Culture https://doi.org/10.1080/17514517.2023.2181803
November 2022: ‘Surrealism in China’ in The Routledge Companion to Surrealism, edited by Kirsten Strom (New York: Routledge) https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003139652-32/surrealism-china-lauren-walden
November 2022: Le Surréalisme de Paris à Shanghai [Surrealism from Paris to Shanghai] book publication with Fondation Giacometti/Editions Hippocampe https://www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en/our-publications#https://www.fondation-giacometti.fr/en/publication/82/le-surrealisme-de-paris-a-shanghai
April 2021: ‘Africa in the Surrealist Imaginary: Photography of Sculpture in Minotaure and Documents’ Visual Anthropology (Taylor and Francis) Volume 34. Issue 3 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/08949468.2021.1908110
February 2020: ‘Cultural Diplomacy in Regional Art Institutions’ Visual Studies (Taylor and Francis). https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2020.1715242
October 2019: ‘British Museum Photography at the 1936 International Surrealist Exhibition’ Visual Resources (Taylor and Francis). https://doi.org/10.1080/01973762.2020.1672358
December 2018: Le Surréalisme en Chine: Terrain Inconnu / Surrealism in China: Unchartered Territory Revue Histoire de L’Art (Institut National de l’Histoire de L’Art, Paris). https://www.open-access.bcu.ac.uk/9163/
November 2017: Transmediality in Symbolist and Surrealist Photo-Literature (Bruges La Morte and Nadja) in Open Cultural Studies De Grutyer. https://doi.org/10.1515/culture-2017-0020
September 2017: From the “Rue des Nations” to the “Rue aux Lèvres”: The 1938 International Surrealist Exhibition Parody of the 1889 and 1900 World Fair Cityscapes Rivista MDCCC1800 Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia: Edizioni Ca' Foscari. http://doi.org/10.14277/2280-8841/MDCCC-6-17-1
Blogs
February 2021: ‘The Cercle Sportif Francais: Elite cosmopolitanism in Shanghai’s Former French Concession’ Historical Photographs of China, University of Bristol.
Conference and Seminar Presentations
Forthcoming June 2025: ‘Surrealist Pop: Propaganda as Muse?’, Competing for People’s Eyes and Ears from Mao to Xi, Charles University, Prague.
Forthcoming June 2025: ‘From Muse to Mother: (En)gendering Sino-British Cultural Diplomacy through Moore in China’, Gender, Diplomacy and Global Connections in Modern Asia, Cardiff University.
October 2024: Chinese Surrealism on the Battlefield: Psychological trauma during the Sino-Japanese and Civil Wars (1937-1949). International Society for the Study of Surrealism Annual Conference American University of Paris.
August 2024: ‘Living Landscapes: Avant-Garde Animism and the Southwestern Art Research Group’ European Association of Chinese Studies Conference, Tallinn University, Estonia.
June 2024: ‘Surrealism in 1980s China: The Red Travels Group’ Joint East Asian Studies Conference, University of Central Lancashire, Preston.
March 2024: ‘Pseudo-Characters: Surrealist Calligraphy in France and China’ France/China 60 years and Beyond, Queen’s University Belfast.
November 2022: “Marcel Mariën: A Belgian Surrealist in Communist China (1963-1965)” International Association for the Study of Surrealism Annual Conference (Online).
August 2022: ‘Clandestine Surrealism in Maoist China: 1949-1976' European Association of Chinese Studies Palacky University, Olomouc, Czech Republic.
May 2021: ‘Surrealism and Shanghai’s Virtual Cosmopolis of Pictorials’ Mixed Cities and Cosmopolitanism in the first half of the twentieth century, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
May 2021: ‘Surrealist Photography in Republican Shanghai: From Hedonism to Horror’ University of Bristol East Asian History Seminar.
December 2020: ‘Shanghai through a Socialist Lens: photographic counter-narratives to a capitalist modernity’ World War Two and Urban Reconstruction in the Socialist World, University of Leicester.
August 2019: ‘Surrealist Photography in China’ International Society for the Study of Surrealism Annual Conference, University of Exeter.
April 2018: ‘Surrealism in China: The Case of Lang Jingshan’ Association of Art Historians International Conference Courtauld Institute of Art and King College London. Global Surrealism Panel.
January 2018: ‘The Irony of Tradition: Guan Xiao and the Chinese Pavilion’ University of Oxford China Centre International Postgraduate conference.
October 2017: ‘Lola Alvarez Bravo: Imagining a Socialist and Indigenous Mexico through Surrealist Journal Photography’ - Eighth International Conference on the Image Venice International University San Servolo Island October 31-November 1st 2017
May 2017: ‘The Generalised Other: Surrealist Photography of Adrienne Fidelin’ University of Warwick and Coventry University Postgraduate Conference
November 2016: Transmediality in Symbolist and Surrealist Photo-literature (University of Szcencin, Poland 17-19th Nov International conference: Transmediating Cultures)
July 2016: Surrealism: A Global Cultural Movement with Local Political Agency. IAFOR Global Studies Conference 2016. (Barcelona: International Conference)
July 2016: Transnational Travelogues: Comparing Breton’s Surrealist Martinique Charmeuse de Serpents with Gauguin’s Symbolist Noa Noa of Tahiti. (Durham University: Transnational French Modernisms International Conference)
March 2016: ‘Camera Work and Minotaure: Cosmopolitan Connections between Symbolist and Surrealist Photography’ Coventry University (seminar)
