Bitten Peach 分桃 is a solo show of high-profile multidisciplinary visual artist Owen Leong, known for his artistic exploration of queer world-making and inspired by a queer reading of Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio,《聊齋志異》, a collection of classical Chinese stories by Qing dynasty writer Pu Songling (1640 – 1715). The collection conjures up a world in which nothing is as it seems, stretching the boundaries between the supernatural and everyday reality, using physical and psychological detail to make the move between these realms seem natural. By fusing historical materials with contemporary forms, the artist has created an exquisite body of work that “navigates the delicate interplay between past and present, desire and fantasy, self and world” and “transforms classical literature into a contemporary celebration of queer joy, power and agency”.

Every year since 2008, Australia has been host to over 100,000 Chinese international students annually, with the largest proportion studying at university level. Although a majority of Chinese university students in Australia are women, the gendered dimensions of China’s educational diaspora are little understood. Similarly, little is known about the long-term post-study afterlives of Australia’s Chinese graduates. This talk draws on an ongoing study since 2012 by Professor Fran Martin of Melbourne University of the social and subjective experiences of fifty young women from China through the years of their university study in Australia and beyond and sheds light on the unique characteristics of the post-1990 generation of transnationally experienced Chinese middle-class women.