Cheryl Sim

Associations between the cheongsam dress and Chinese cultural identity are well known but what are the meanings of the cheongsam for members of the Chinese diaspora? In a study grounded in first-hand accounts of wearing, Cheryl Sim explores the practices and experiences of women in Canada, a major Chinese diaspora, and carries out the first in-depth study of the cheongsam from this critical point of view. Questions explored over the course of 20 interviews, as well as during personal reflections on the author's own experiences of wearing, include: is there a desire to re-claim or appropriate the cheongsam? Does this desire risk perpetuating stereotypes of Asian women? Does it undermine one's identification with one's host country? Can erased heritage(s) be accessed through dress? And how does wearing the cheongsam interact with the male gaze? Revealing feelings of repulsion and attraction, Sim combines personal stories with an authoritative use of theoretical frameworks such as feminism, post-colonialism and autoethnography. Covering issues such as heritage, ethnic identity, authenticity, nationalism, patriarchy and assimilation, Sim demonstrates that the meanings of the cheongsam are multifarious. Readable but with strong academic underpinnings, this book is the entry point into discussions of Chinese dress and diaspora.

Dress and Culture in a Chinese Diaspora

Wearing the Cheongsam

John Knowles

DHC/ART LIBRE tells the story of a contemporary art foundation unlike any other. Situated in the cosmopolitan city of Montreal, DHC/ART - as well as this publication - is dedicated to bringing impactful experiences with contemporary art to the public with a mission of accessibility on multiple levels. The critically acclaimed program includes major

Libre Dhc / Art

This publication is basedon the major exhibition All Our Relations, which explored the complex and multiple meanings of diaspora, its condition and experience as expressed through painting. As part of a discursive approach, All Our Relations brought together works by artists thatelicit meanings of the diasporic condition from a diversity of perspectives, methodologies and aesthetic languages. The medium of painting, with its deep and complex history becomes a particularly provocative lens through which to explore the complications as well as the celebration and richness of diasporic experiences. With a desire for an intergenerational dialogue the exhibition also presented proposals that push the boundaries of what painting is and can be.Featuring full-colour reproductions and installation views, each work is accompanied by a texts by a wide range of writers that explore each artist's practice.

Diaspora and Painting

Relations

Stephen Hay

Sue Thomas

Jill Ryan

Stephen Billett

Greer Johnson

Leaving school, whether to move on to training, work or education, is a fundamental rite of passage the world over. This volume draws on a wealth of international sources and studies in its analysis of the ‘transitions’ young students make as they move on from their secondary schooling. It identifies how these transitions are planned for by policymakers, enacted by school staff and engaged with by students themselves. With data from a range of nations with advanced industrial economies, the book delineates how the policies relating to these transitions need to be conceived and implemented, how the transitions themselves are negotiated by young people, and how they might be shaped to meet the varied needs of the students they are designed to help. The authors argue that the relationship, often complex, between what schools provide in the way of preparation, and the ways in which students take up what is on offer, is the crucial nexus for understanding the experience of transitions by young people, and for enhancing that experience. With a host of case studies of transition policies themselves, as well as evaluative data on how they were received by the school leavers whom they were designed for, this valuable addition to the educational literature deserves to be read by all those with roles in preparing the young for their journey into a complex adult world full of pitfalls as well as opportunity.

Cheryl Sim

Books

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