London-based Taiwanese artist Clare Chun-yu Liu weaves together narratives of migration, identity, and the fluidity of cultural belonging. Born and raised in Taipei, Liu’s artistic journey has been shaped by her family’s diasporic past, spanning Indonesia, Taiwan, and beyond. Deeply rooted in personal and collective histories, her work explores the complexities of cultural inheritance and how notions of belonging shift across time and place.

With a background in literature and a research-driven approach to artmaking, Liu bridges historical inquiry with contemporary visual language, challenging dominant narratives of Chinese diasporas and reclaiming their nuances. Through moving image, sound, and speculative storytelling, she examines the intersections of theory and narrative, gender and artistic freedom, and the role of diasporic kinship in the arts.

In this conversation, Liu shares insights into her artistic evolution, the impact of her transnational heritage, and how she navigates history through moving image. She discusses her trilogy of works addressing the 1949 Chinese Civil War diaspora, as well as her latest project at esea contemporary—a digital work reimagining early Chinese migration to Britain through sound and speculative storytelling. As she prepares for her forthcoming film, I Drank the Moon’s Reflection, which interrogates English chinoiserie from a postcolonial perspective, Liu continues to expand the discourse on diaspora in contemporary art.

CNTRFLD. Can you share a bit about your upbringing and the journey that led you to become an artist? How has your heritage shaped your creative path?

CCL. I was born and brought up in Taipei when Taiwan was going through the phase of rapid political changes into a nascent democracy, as a result of the mass civilian protests demanding for broader freedom and an end to the one-party landscape. This only became to be the case to me in history lessons at school. I have met people who are three years older than me and their experience was very different. At 7, they went to primary schools whose walls were adorned with slogans saying, ‘fight the communist bandits’ and ‘give our land back’. At some point, these slogans went; then later pupils including me started our lives oblivious to such a recent past. It was only recently that I realised this different lived experience spoke of the turn of the Cold War.

In Taipei, I read English Literature for my first degree and used to teach English for a living. My journey as an artist commenced when I came to the UK for art education and a new chapter of life. Looking back, these different ways in which to review history in the context of Taiwan have opened up my curiosity and formulated the questions I ask as an artist.

CNTRFLD. Your work often engages with the Chinese diaspora and the fluidity of identity. How has your own diasporic experience as a Taiwanese artist influenced your artistic approach and themes?

CCL. My exploration of the Chinese diaspora is directly informed by my familial background. My father was born in rural Indonesia to a Totok father and Peranakan mother. Totok Chinese are the ones who themselves or whose family moved to Indonesia in the early twentieth century. Whereas, Peranakan Chinese have a long history of dwelling in Indonesia, usually dating from hundreds of years ago. The Communist Purge saw my father and his siblings escape to Taiwan as children and be practically adopted by the Taiwanese government. Many years ago, after watching Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, I could barely eat or sleep for three days.

My maternal family came from China to Taiwan in 1949 as part of the Nationalists’ relocation. Living in a veteran’s village in Tainan, my mother and her two sisters married three Chinese Indonesian men who shared a university dormitory: three Nationalist sisters and three Hakka men from Sumatra. This is the magic of life and destiny. And so, my family stories are ones of Sumatra, Chongqing and Tianjin – and more. As the political tension between China and Taiwan escalated by the day in the 90s, my relatives immigrated to North, Central and South Americas, Europe and Africa.

Studying art in Britain, I began to look back at the making of myself, which was a result of these coincidences, histories and diasporas. Naturally, in my art practice I have been exploring the Chinese diaspora and the fluidity of identity, for I am interested in not simply identity but identities. Works about multiple migrations by artists including Fiona Tan, Richard Fung and Elia Suleiman are inspiring to my artistic imagination. I also gravitate towards work by scholars, such as Ien Ang, Rey Chow and Shu-mei Shih who investigate, theorise and have personally experienced multiple diasporas. It has been a joy to learn from and participate in the discussion of the Chinese diasporic experience from across languages, cultures and host countries.

CNTRFLD. What drew you to video and film as your primary medium? How does filmmaking allow you to navigate and challenge historical narratives differently from other art forms?

CCL. Using moving image as my artistic medium came naturally when I was building the foundation of my art practice. I came to the realisation that I aspired to reconnect with my background in literature. That is to write and to have writing as part of my visual practice. The multidimensional nature of moving image answered my needs perfectly. To me, the chemistry between the textual and the visual is the most profound, exciting and beautiful. The diversity of moving image as an artistic medium deeply captivates me. I remember watching Deimantas Narkevicius’s work on the Communist era in Lithuania. By simply reversing the archival footage of Stalin’s statue being torn down/put up, the question of historical narratives comes to life. In my practice, historical narratives are challenged through communicating lived experience and oral history.

CNTRFLD. Your trilogy of films explores the impact of the 1949 Chinese Civil War diaspora. What was your research process like, and how did you balance personal and national histories in these works?

CCL. The trilogy unfolded in an organic way: over the years I collated the lived experience and oral history of some individuals from the diaspora of the Nationalists’ relocation to Taiwan in 1949. In the meantime, I was reading and exploring ideas, such as Benedict Anderson’s imagined community and diasporic Chineseness discussed by Ien Ang, Rey Chow and Shu-mei Shih. There was also the collaborative aspect of my father helping me dig out and digitalise old family photos at home. The intention behind the trilogy is to challenge the overly politicised way of reviewing both our history and present moment in Taiwan. Even our school textbooks get re-edited depending on which political party is in power: sometimes China is part of our domestic History and Geography, sometimes it is not. Through some individuals’ personal stories including my grandparents’, I try to provide an intimate account of the recent history.

CNTRFLD. Your current work at esea contemporary reimagines early Chinese migration to Britain through sound and speculative storytelling. How do you see this project contributing to a broader understanding of diasporic histories?

CCL. In my 14 years in the UK, it has been an interesting experience to observe the public discourse around the life of immigrants here. In terms of people of Chinese heritage (and beyond), I have noticed the tendency to discuss the impoverished part of diasporic experience. On the other hand, from time to time there is coverage about ultra rich Asians snatching up properties with an astronomical price tag. As a newcomer to this country, I see that this polarised representation of diasporic Chinese experience serves as a means to other the demographics. This is especially poignant when you consider the lack of discussion of (ex)international students carving a path for themselves after education here.

In this context, John Anthony was a fascinating character. He spoke excellent English, made a huge fortune working for the East India Company in London, married an English woman and infiltrated the British immigration and class system – all the way back in the turn of the 19^th century. Anthony’s legacy also makes us re-consider the (diasporic) Chinese obligation of ‘doing well’ and also ‘doing well’ as an unexpected immigrant. Indeed, through my work on his life, I want to challenge the British stereotypes of the Chinese diaspora.

CNTRFLD. Your forthcoming film, I Drank the Moon’s Reflection, examines English chinoiserie through a postcolonial lens. What inspired you to reinterpret chinoiserie, and how does the film engage with historical narratives of cultural exchange and appropriation?

CCL. Many years ago, I came across chinoiserie by accident when I visited the Royal Pavilion in Brighton. It was a gob smacking experience to see its wild chinoiserie interior across the palace. Ever since, I aspired to explore chinoiserie as a large-scale project; luckily, I was offered a full scholarship to work on it at Manchester School of Art. As I had been investigating Chineseness as a diasporic identity, chinoiserie raised the problem of Chineseness as a visual language: just what actually was Chineseness? I Drank the Moon’s Reflection is the third film of mine on English chinoiserie and my second film set in Harewood House near Leeds. The new work will look into the intriguing vases: they were made in China in the seventeenth century, brought to Europe by the Dutch East India Company, mounted with metal by the French and were sold to English aristocratic households during the French Revolution. Some of these vases from Harewood House were later sold at auction houses. As the Lascelles family is of French heritage, the work looks into the artefacts in relation to impermanence.

CNTRFLD. Becoming and Becoming explores the concept of in-betweenness, a recurring theme in your work. How do you personally relate to this state of being “in between,” and how does it manifest in your storytelling?

CCL. Last year I went back to Taiwan at a short notice and on my way back to the UK I realised I was in-between my two homes: the home of birth and the home by choice. Looking at the fleeting clouds outside of the plane, I was fascinated by the fact of being ungrounded, unmoored and in between two solid places physically and metaphysically. This peculiar sense of disorientation became my starting point to make Becoming and becoming. The somewhere-in-the-middle location not only makes me think about cultural identity, but also the gap between history and historiography, fiction and non-fiction, in which I have been exploring the Chinese diaspora and chinoiserie. Becoming and becoming, which is in production at the moment, is my first work in which I am not directly telling a story as a way to experiment with narrative. I am curious to see how it unfolds as a poetic contemplation on in-betweenness with philosophical texts from Buddhism, Auerbach’s Mimesis and more.

CNTRFLD. You have been based in the UK for much of your career. What drew you here, and how do you perceive the support networks for artists exploring diasporic themes compared to other places you’ve worked?

CCL. So far, I have only practiced art in the UK and so am unable to offer any comparison. What I can say is in this country there is a rich and enriching discourse around diaspora in the arts, owing to the diverse demographics here. This is why some artists and writers etc. choose this location for their cultural production. When you see and digest other’s work around diasporic themes, you get the nutrition and a sense of kinship for your own practice, which to me is the support networks. This is what keeps us going: the sharing between artists and with the audience is precious. Without this cycle of making and showing, diasporic experience is a lonely experience.

CNTRFLD. As an artist-researcher, your work bridges academic inquiry and artistic practice. How do you navigate the relationship between theory and storytelling in your films?

CCL. Because of my background in English Literature, I was trained to thinking textually in the first place. To me, textual exploration itself does not suffice; mere visual exploration is not enough either. This is why I experiment with both text-writing and image-making through the medium of film. It is worth saying that theory tends to come across as a big word – and so does ‘academic inquiry’. Both are really just working with ideas that we all contemplate intuitively but in this case with labelling. As a visual practitioner who adores theory and image equally, I think the two liberate each other and in the process this liberation give rise to something that would otherwise not come into existence.

CNTRFLD. How does your perception of gender influence your artistic practice? What challenges or opportunities have you encountered as a woman artist in the contemporary art world?

CCL. This is an interesting question. I feel that Taiwanese society has lower expectations of women than of men. Personally speaking, the narrative I grew up with was that I should aim to work as a secretary in one of the big semiconductor companies or something like that. This narrative only stopped when I finished my PhD. Although I have not explored gender or feminism so far in my practice, my personal experience as a woman is one of liberation from the social constraint of gender role, which then sets me free as an artist. Since I operate in the UK and occasionally in continental Europe, I have to deal with both race and gender.

My experience is that this intersection is much more problematic in the academic context, in which I regularly encounter microaggressions as a young-looking Asian female artist academic. On one occasion, I was asked by another lecturer whether I had taught before five times in a row, as if I could not understand the question. This was not long after Ngozi Fulani had been asked repetitively where she was really from at Buckingham Palace. The danger here is what Fanon warns us that is internalised racism; it is essential to call people out. As a matter of fact, I am contemplating making an art project out of this experience and would like to invite interested parties to get in touch with me to discuss partnership and collaboration.

CNTRFLD. What advice would you give to emerging artists looking to carve their own path in the arts?

CCL. Being an artist is swimming against the tide in the world currently hijacked by capitalism. Fredric Jameson once said it is easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism – this speaks volumes of the enormity of the project of making art in the here and now. Having been a practicing artist for a few years now, I feel that this business is a marathon rather than a sprint. It is imperative to have sustainability in your life and art practice. Look after yourself: your emotional, physical and financial wellbeing. Find a balance that works for you regardless of the dominant social values.

CNTRFLD. What can we expect from your upcoming projects? Are there particular themes or questions you’re currently exploring that feel especially urgent or personal to you?

CCL. At the moment, I am working on creating a cross-cultural reading of Habsburg chinoiserie in central Europe, whose main patron was Empress Maria Theresa. It is captivating to look into this history which transcends the current national border. Later in 2025, I will spend some time in Berlin as Research Fellow at the Museum of Applied Art. I am curious about Frederick the Great, who adored chinoiserie just like other European monarchs. I am endlessly fascinated by the rich and enchanting history behind such material culture that is still around and available to view in public. It feels like Chineseness as a visual language in diaspora.

About the artist.

Clare Chun-yu Liu is a UK-based Taiwanese artist filmmaker and academic. She is currently Research Fellow at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Postdoctoral Artist Fellow at Brno University of Technology and Visiting Researcher at ARCHIVO, and was Vice-Chancellor PhD Scholar at Manchester School of Art. Informed by her familial background of coming from Taiwan, China and Indonesia, Clare’s practice-based Fine Art research centres on the Chinese diaspora and the fluidity of identity with a focus on lived experience and oral history. Recently, she has been re-interpreting the European cultural heritage of chinoiserie from a cross-cultural and postcolonial perspective. She has presented her research at institutions including Oxford University, Central Saint Martins, University College London, SOAS and Paul Mellon Centre. Clare’s films have been screened and exhibited internationally, including at ICA London, EXiS, Image Forum Festival, Kasseler Dokfest, Goethe-Institut Lisbon, and Minsheng Art Museum Beijing. Recently, her article on the Royal Pavilion Brighton has been published by the British Art Network.

www.clarechunyuliu.com

@clarechunyuliu

CREDITS:

⁠Illustration of Clare Chun-yu Liu by Maria Chen. 

ALL WORKS: ©Clare Chun-yu Liu