Liang Shaoji’s Silkworm Art: Untangling Multispecies Craft

This book focuses on the work of Chinese contemporary artist Liang Shaoji and emphasises the contribution of multispecies ethnography to art criticism. Over three decades, Liang has worked with domestic silkworms to craft art that embodies the Daoism-inspired ecological motif of ’ziran’. Are silkworms co-authors or alienated fabricators in such creative practice? Based on a multi-sited ethnographic study conducted in China, the book delves into Liang’s artistic techniques involving close collaboration with silkworm farmers and biologists. In doing so it makes a significant contribution to discussions of non-human agency and labour. The author unveils the intricate power dynamics between silkworms and their caretakers, revealing multi-sensory knowledge, anthropomorphic kinship and moral dilemmas inherent in working with these insects. This volume will be of particular interest to scholars working in the anthropology of art, human-animal studies, and environmental humanities.

Feixuan Xu is an anthropologist specialising in the anthropology of art and multispecies ethnography. She obtained a PhD in Creative Media from City University of Hong Kong and was Asymmetry Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Courtauld Institute of Art, UK.