Invited talks and presentations
2026.5. Invited Keynote speech: "From Attention to Attunement: Breath and Energetic Relationality in Cinematic World-making" at Ecologies of Attention - the Asymmetry International Symposium, Courtauld Institute of Art, London
2026.4. "Nothingness as Film (Me)Ontology, Breath as Cinematic Engagement: Heidegger, Irigaray and Daoism" at 'Daoism, Daoism’s Transcultural and Transhistorical Resonances - Cinema and Wellbeing: Meditative Cinema’ Inaugural Research Workshop, BLOC, QMUL
2025.11. Invited keynote speech: "Cinematic Nothingness in Nomadland and Chloe Zhao’s Wuwei Filmmaking" at Chloe Zhao’s Transnational Cinema symposium, University Portsmouth.
2025.5. "Cinematic Oneness" at the 2025 annual Asian Cinema Studies Society (ACSS) Conference, the University of Hong Kong.
2025.3. "Meditative Cinema" at British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies (BAFTSS) annual conference, University of Warwick.
2024.12. Invited talk: ‘Breathing cinema: Embodiment of Qi in Sinophone women’s personal cinema’ at Taiwan Women’s cinema workshop, IIAS, Leiden University, the Netherlands.
2024. 11. Invited talk: In conversation with Professor Jie Li of Harvard University on Cinematic Gerrilla, BLOC in collaboration with Kraszna-Krausz Foundation and Barbican Centre
2024.9. Invited talk: BFI Maggie Cheung Film Season Opening Event panel discussion
2024.9. Invited talk: BFI Philosophical Screening of In the Mood for Love, panel discussion
2024.3. “The ethics of wuwei and cultivation of de: cosmological thinking in artists’ moving image from contemporary China”, at SCMS annual conference, Boston, USA.
2024.6. “Cinema that Breathes: women’s personal nonfiction film”, at Sinophone Women’s cinema and Women Filmmakers symposium, QMUL, UK.
2024.3. Invited Talk: "Cinematic Ideoream" at Transmediating Tradition Workshop, Oxford University
2023.11. Invited Talk: "Cinema of qi and the qi of cinema: The politics of ecological cinema and a Daoist approach through vital energy" at Cambridge Cinema and Screen Studies Seminar Series.
2023.8. "Ethics of wuwei: cosmological thinking in artists’ moving image from contemporary China" at Visible Evidence 2023, Udine
2023.6. Invited Keynote Speech: "Cinematic ideorealm and cinema as Dao: theorising film aesthetics through Daoism" at King's College London WIP PhD conference.
2023.4 "Cinema as Dao: A Daoist approach to film as decolonising knowledge production" at "De-westernised methods to film theory and film philosophy Panel", BAFTSS Anual conference, University of Lincoln
2023.4 "The politics of ecological cinema for sustainable futures and cinema of qi" at "QMUL Film and Ethics Panel" at BAFTSS Anual conference, University of Lincoln
2021.12 “Daoism and Cinema: human-nature relationship through Daoist aesthetic and ethical stance’ at Frankfurt, Visible Evidence 2021
2021.4 “Nonhuman eyes on human inhabitants: Xu Bing’s Dragonfly Eye through Daoist transformative perspective’ at BAFTSS Annual Conference 2021
2021.1 “Three modes of Chinese independent documentary production” at Reassessing Chinese Independent Cinema international conference
2019.11 “Ideorealm, Daoism, Fiction and Fact in Symbiosis” at Fiction and Non-fiction Divide Conference, QMUL
2019. 9. Roundtable discussion and screening of China’s van Goghs at 'Contemporary Chinese-language Independent Cinemas and their Future', Southampton University
2018.6 Invited Keynote Speech: “First Person Expression on non Western Screens ” at European Network for Cinema and Media Studies Annual Conference 2018, 27-29 June, University of Amsterdam
2018.4 ‘Imaginative Archive, Homage and the First Person Plural of the Dead in Like a Flaneur on Sunday (a.k.a. Le Moulin, 2015)’ for BAFTSS Annual Conference, 12-13 April, University of Kent
2018.3 Introduction to China’s van Goghs (and director Q+A), at University of Harvard, USA
2018.3 “Performing the Self to an Interactive Audience: audio-visual Self construction on Zhibo - Live Streaming Broadcast in contemporary China”, SCMS Annual Conference, 14-18 March, Toronto
2018. 2 Introduction to China’s van Goghs & Screening, at BFI London
2017.12. Masterclass on Documentary Storytelling, Jinan University, Guangzhou, China
2017.12 “Grassroots Art Making and Personal Expression”, at Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation, China
2017.11 “Exploring Essay Film (Sanwen Dianying) and the Essayistic in Chinese Cinemas and Cultural Tradition”, at Essay Film and Narrative Techniques: Screenwriting Non-fiction Symposium of the BAFTSS ‘Essay Film’ Research Group, University of York
2017.8 Organised Panel ‘First Person Documentary Practice in East and Southeast Asia’ for Visible Evidence Conference, Buenos Aries
2017.3 “First Person Action Documentary Practice in Grassroots China” at SCMS Annual Conference 22-26 March, Chicago
2017.3 “Personal Documentary Practice by Young Generation Chinese” at Annual Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, Toronto
2016.3 “Art, Context, Documentary: the Making of Art in China’s van Goghs” at ACLA Annual conference, University of Harvard
2015.4 “Changing Mode of Chinese Independent Documentary” at New Directions in Production Studies International Conference organised by University of the West of England, Watershed Art Centre, Bristol
2015.3 “Amateur Image and Memory Construction” at Beijing OCAT Symposium on Didi Huber-man, Beijing
2015.3 With A.T. McKenna,“Internationalising Memory: Traumatic Histories and the PRC's Quest to Win an Oscar” at Sino-Latin American studies symposium, Ningbo Museum & UNNC, Ningbo
2015.1 ‘How to Pitch Successful Stories at International Film Market’ at Asian Side of the Doc workshop, Beijing
2014.6 “Cinema of Dispersion: China’ iGeneration Moving Image Culture” ,Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai
2013.6 “Camera Activism in Contemporary PRC” at The 8th International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS), Macao
2013.1 “Documentary Filmmaking as an Action to Produce a Shared Political Subjectivity” at Chinese Film Forum UK symposium, Chinese Arts Centre, Manchester
2012.9 “The Changing Notion of Individual Self” at British Association for Chinese Studies (BACS) 2012 annual conference, University of Oxford
2012.6 “Producing the ‘Public Self’” at Lau China Institute, King’s College London
2011.5 “Amateur Filmmaking and Chinese First Person Documentary”, at New Generation Chinese Cinema International Conference, King’s College London
2010.9 “The Familial Self in Chinese First Person DV Documentary Practice”, at Saving Private Reel International Conference, University College Cork, Ireland
2010.1 “The Eyes Looking at the ‘I’ - Chinese Personal Video Practice in the 21st Century” at Documentary Now! 2010 Conference, London
2009.6 “The Power of Staging Identities in Autoethnographic Film” Beyond the politics of identity, University of Aberdeen, Scotland