Di Liu

I am a historian of material culture and visual arts in the modern and contemporary periods. Currently, I am a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Faculty of History, working on the 'Chinese Furniture: A Global History' project, supported by the John Fell Fund.

Prior to Oxford, I completed my PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge, focusing on the politics of connoisseurship of Chinese hardwood furniture in early twentieth-century Peking, a category that was constructed amid wars, revolutions, and changing international relations.

I previously received my MA in History of Design from the Royal College of Art/Victoria and Albert Museum, and my bachelor’s degree in sociology, anthropology and history from Peking University.

I also worked for the Asia Art Archive in Hong Kong, engaging with questions such as how ‘Asian art’ was ‘invented’ and how its boundaries have constantly been negotiated. Alongside my academic work, I am a curator and art critic, publishing regularly in both English and Chinese.

Research Interests

My research investigates the social and historical processes that shape material culture, with a specific focus on furniture, connoisseurship, collecting, and exhibition practices. My PhD thesis has examined how the category of ‘Chinese furniture’ was constructed within a broader socio-political context that interweaves various actors and institutions, including collectors, connoisseurs, amateurs, artisans, dealers, curators and museums. These interactions frequently transcend national borders and are deeply embedded in ideologies, transcultural knowledge production and changing fashions of taste.

A key concern of my research is the role of ‘indigenous’ cultural forms in these processes. For instance, my doctoral research has explored how the Chinese connoisseurial tradition, which values ‘superfluity’, intersects with a modern, ‘scientific’ approach to studying material culture. Another example is how ancestral worship of Lu Ban, the patron saint of carpenters, served to unite and organise craftsmen and woodworkers in the formation of the furniture industry in late imperial and early Republican China. In a separate line of research, I analyse the practices of contemporary art biennials in Asia, by conceptualising them through the framework of popular festivals (a book chapter for The Cultural History of Asian Art Project at The Courtauld) and theorising the Indonesian term ‘lumbung’ (rice barn) as a curatorial and exhibition model.

I emphasise the significance of spaces in displaying and representing material objects. One of my forthcoming journal articles examines the furnished interiors of The China Club in Hong Kong. This private social club functions as a semi-public exhibition space, showcasing an eclectic collection of contemporary Chinese art to its rather exclusive clientele within a meticulously decorated, nostalgic setting.

Currently, I am working with Professor Jennifer Altehenger to develop a global history of Chinese furniture since the eighteenth century. External partners include the Victoria & Albert Museum, the National Trust, and other institutions in Europe, the US, and Asia.