Shuxia Chen

Shuxia Chen is a historian and curator of Chinese visual art with a research focus on diasporic artistic practice, cultural networks, art collectives, and reciprocal relations between people and objects. 

Shuxia obtained her Masters of Studio Arts from Sydney College of Arts and has been in group exhibitions related to Chinese Australian community, including Make Yourself At Home (Chinalink Gallery, 2012) and Made in China, Australia (touring exhibition in regional Australia, 2013-2015, at Salamanca Arts Centre, Burnie Regional Art Gallery, Mcclelland Sculpture Park and Museum, Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery, Adelaide Festival Centre, Ararat Regional Gallery, Kickarts Contemporary Arts Cairns, Grafton Regional Gallery, QVMAG Launceston). Recently, she is the State Library of NSW David Scott Mitchell Memorial Fellow (2022-2023), investigating the role of women played in Chinese-Australian relations during the Sino-Japanese War through photography archives. Chen is the inaugural curator of the Chau Chak Wing Museum's China Gallery, and a lecturer in the Master’s of Curating and Cultural Leadership, at the University of New South Wales School of Art & Design.

When asked about how she first knew of the Womanifesto network and became involved with Womanifesto events, Shuxia states: "I have known Phaptawan Suwannakudt since the first week I arrived in Sydney for my master's degree at Sydney College of the Arts. Despite the fact that I have stopped my artistic practice and am mainly an academic and curator, Phaptawan invited me to be her collaborator for the Womanifesto Sydney Gathering project. It was a very difficult time during the pandemic. I felt very welcomed and comfortable to make art as a participant with a cohort of wonderful women artists."