About
Han Mengyun (b. 1989 in Wuhan, raised in Shenzhen, China) is an interdisciplinary and multimedia artist, comparatist, filmmaker, poet and mother currently based in London. She received BA in Studio Art from Bard College and has pursued the study of Sanskrit at various institutions such as Kyoto University before she completed her MFA at the University of Oxford with a research focus on Classical Indology and Indian aesthetic theories. Her practice is metaphorically divided between "day" and "night," exploring a wide range of themes from the decolonization of Eurasian transcultural hybridizations to personal experiences as a woman and mother.
管锥计划 Limited Views: writing, publishing and translation
Day Practice
During the "day," Han Mengyun focuses on painting, diverging from Eurocentric frameworks—both classical and contemporary—to delve into the complex historical ties within the profoundly intercultural context of Eurasia's past and present. Initially trained in the Western tradition of oil painting, she shifted towards embracing the complexities of historical ties and intercultural dialogues that have shaped the continent's history. The broad focus of her research covers interdisciplinary manifestations of cultural dialogue and polyvocal aesthetic conversations—from religion, philosophy, and mythologies to trade, vernacular craftsmanship, and bookmaking.
Her studies in Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, along with Indian and Islamic art and intellectual histories, have led her to forge an alternative paradigm for image-making. This paradigm is based on Indian and Islamicate miniature painting in manuscripts, inspired by the invention of paper and printing techniques in ancient China. She views the book as an open space connecting all cultures while maintaining the uniqueness of cultural perceptions. Therefore, her paintings are conceived as pages and books, paying tribute to the history of ancient globalization—such as the Silk Road—and the intercultural dialogues that have made the world inherently hybrid and interconnected.
Works reflecting her Day Practice are:
The Unending Rose
Panchatantra
The Pavilion of Three Mirrors
The Shape of Silence
The Glass Bead Game
Night Practice
During the "night," Han Mengyun explores her personal, emotional, and psychological experiences as a woman and a mother. Her affinity for the night developed from an uncontrollable desire to write poems in darkness during episodes of postpartum depression. The night emancipated her and inspired her écriture féminine. Her feminist awareness and radical solidarity were kindled by Gayatri Spivak's critical concern for the subaltern, the contradictions of existence as double binds caused by colonialism and modernity, and creative play as non-compliance. The subjects of intersectionality and legacies of imperialism are significant recurring tropes in her practice.
She mediates the relationship between the personal and the collective from her experience as a female subaltern, exploring emerging notions of alternative solidarity in the struggle for visibility and just access to shaping planetary cultural discourse. From writing and filmmaking to painting and textile installation—often merging these forms—her Night Practice examines women's experiences, utterances, and art forms in transgenerational, transcultural, transhistorical, and inter-religious contexts, probing the roots of subalternity and the possibilities of liberation.
Works reflecting her Night Practice are:
Night Sutra
Serenade
Night
Confession: Prologue
One on One: Han Mengyun on Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak