Organised by Dr Jan Woudstra in conjunction with the Gardens Trust, the event will look at new discoveries in the field from both professionals and post-graduate students from around the world. Dr Alison Hardie will introduce the conference and outline the importance that Maggie Keswick’s 1978 book The Chinese Garden, History Art and Architecture has played in the subject. It is a unique opportunity to hear speakers from UK and International institutions to present their new research in the field. Talks will cover subjects as wide-ranging as Jesuit water landscapes, gardens as museums, Feng Shui symbolism and botanical watercolours.

Registration

Booking required.

Tickets costs and details of how to book are available at this link.

Presentation

This two-day conference held in the Department of Landscape at the University of Sheffield will explore new research in the history of Chinese gardens and landscapes.

Organised by Dr Jan Woudstra in conjunction with the Gardens Trust, the event will look at new discoveries in the field from both professionals and post-graduate students from around the world.

Dr Alison Hardie will introduce the conference and outline the importance that Maggie Keswick’s 1978 book The Chinese Garden, History Art and Architecture has played in the subject. It is a unique opportunity to hear speakers from UK and International institutions to present their new research in the field. Talks will cover subjects as wide-ranging as Jesuit water landscapes, gardens as museums, Feng Shui symbolism and botanical watercolours.

The conference notably received the support of Confucius Institute (Sheffield).

Program

Thursday 26 October 2017

10.00-10.25 Registration

Chair: Dr Jan Woudstra, University of Sheffield

• 10.25 Welcome
• 10.30 Dr Alison Hardie, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Leeds, UK, Chinese Garden and Landscape Studies in the 21st Century
• 11.00 Dr Lei Gao, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, As, Norway, The concept of Paradise in Chinese Buddhism and its interpretation in designed landscape in Qianglong era (1736-1795)

11.30 Tea/Coffee

• 12.00 Xiaoyan Hu, PhD candidate, Liverpool University, UK, The dialectic aesthetics of Xu (emptiness) and Shi (fullness) in Chinese landscape art (landscape painting, landscape poetry, gardening) from the Six Dynasties
• 12.30 Questions and discussion

13.00 Lunch

• Chair: Josepha Richard, PhD Candidate, University of Sheffield
• 14.00 Dr Antonio José Mezcua López, Granada University, Spain, Hangzhou’s West Lake Research Proposal: The Song Dynasty (960-1279)
• 14.30 Professor Carol Brash, St John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Canonizing the Garden of Solitary Delight (Dule Yuan)

15.00 Tea/Coffee

• 15.30 Dr Kate Bailey and Charlotte Brooks, Royal Horticultural Society, London, UK, The RHS Reeves collection of Chinese botanical watercolours: a story of people and plants in China and Britain in the early nineteenth century
• 16.00 Dr Lianming Wang, Heidelberg University, Heidelberg. Fountains and Jesuit Water Landscapes in eighteenth-century Beijing
• 16.30 Questions and discussion
• 17.00 Close

Evening: Conference Chinese dinner

Friday 27 October 2017

Chair: Dr Alison Hardie Honorary Research Fellow, University of Leeds

• 09.55 Welcome
• 10.00 Dr Stephen Whiteman, University of Sydney, Australia. Post-histories and past formations in a Qing garden
• 10.30 Josepha Richard, PhD candidate, University of Sheffield, UK, East-West encounters in the Cantonese garden

11.00 Coffee

• 11.30 Youcao Ren, PhD candidate, University of Sheffield, UK, FengShui Landscapes in the late Qing Royal Garden Design
• 12.00 Questions and discussion

12.30 Lunch

Chair: Dr Sally Jeffery, The Gardens Trust

• 13.30 Zhang Yichi, PhD candidate, University of Technology, Sydney, Australia. From Decoration to Necessity: the functions of Public Parks in the British Concessions of China, 1842-1937
• 14.00 Yuanyuan Liu, PhD candidate, University of Edinburgh, UK, The Modernisation of the Traditional Space during the Chinese Park Movement: Case Study of Xuanwu Lake in Najing, 1928-1949

14.30 Tea/Coffee

• 15.00 Professor William Callahan, London School of Economics, London, UK. Cultivating Power: Chinese gardens as sites of diplomacy, war and peace
• 15.30 Questions and discussion
• 16.00 Close