UCL hosts Chinese research delegation on art, anthropology and heritage in the Anthropocene

Last week the UCL Institute of Archaeology hosted a delegation of academic staff and research students from Southeast University and China National Academy of Arts to explore research synergies on art, anthropology and heritage within the context of the Anthropocene and the climate emergency. 

A highlight of the visit was a generous donation of books written by the renowned Chinese anthropologist Fei Xiaotong from Professor Lili Fang, Director of the Art Anthropology Research Institute at the China National Academy of Art, Beijing, Distinguished Chair Professor of Art Anthropology at Southeast University, Nanjing, and Founding President of the Chinese Association for the Anthropology of Art, and Professor Yongjian Wang, Professor in the Anthropology Research Institute at the China National Academy of Art and a visiting researcher in the 2025/6 Academic Year in the UCL Institute of Archaeology. 

This donation highlighted longstanding research connections on what we now term heritage studies between London and China, as Fei Xiaotong received his PhD from the London School of Economics under the direction of Bronisław Malinowski in 1938. Professor Lili Fang was herself Fei Xiaotong’s last postdoctoral researcher, undertaking anthropological research in the west of China under his direction. 

The UCL Institute of Archaeology hosted two public lectures from the visitors, an ICCHA China Night Seminar by Professor Yongjian Wang, on Flow of Artefacts and the Reproduction of Cultural Meanings: An Ethnographic Study of Chinese Export Ceramics in Ancient Southeast Asia and a Special Guest Lecture by Professor Lili Fang, on Post-Agricultural Civilisation: Insights from the Development and Transformation of China’s “Porcelain Capital”, Jingdezhen (co-sponsored by the Heritage Section and the ICCHA at the IoA).

Participants in the research exchange also visited museums and heritage sites across London together during their visit, including the V&A Museum, the British Museum, and the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, where Dr David Francis and Professor Rodney Harrison from UCL are exploring the potential for museums and heritage sites to support green transitions as part of the large, international Horizon Europe and UKRI-funded PITCH project.