HKU Division of Landscape Architecture Public Talks:
Landscape and Conservation
Date: 2 August, 2023 (Wednesday)
Time: 3:30-6:00 pm
Zoom: https://hku.zoom.us/j/91552569637?pwd=eTlneEVvVU5uaEJvVnI0NGhUYTkzUT09
Lecture titles:
“Redefining Heritage”- Boya Guo
“Landscapes in the longue-durée: environmental histories and the future of heritage”- Maxime Decaudin
“Study of Plants in Shaping the Identity and Culture of the Garden of Ninfa: Conservation of historic gardens and landscape as living monuments”- Xiaomin Jin
“Counternarratives as a critical approach to heritage conservation”- Clara Rellensmann
“Heritage Value Production and Built Environment: A History-of-Science based Approach”- Changxue Shu
Speakers:
Boya Guo
Lecturer
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Maxime Decaudin
Senior Lecturer
National University of Singapore
Xiaomin Jin
PhD. in History, Representation and Restoration of Architecture
University of Rome “La Sapienza”
Clara Rellensmann
Teaching and Research Associate
Department of Architectural Conservation
Faculty of Architecture, Civil Engineering and Urban Planning
Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU)
Changxue Shu
Senior Postdoctoral Researcher
Department of Architecture & Raymond Lemaire International Centre for Conservation
Faculty of Engineering Science
KU Leuven (University of Leuven)
Biography:
Boya Guo is a scholar in heritage studies. Her research areas include urban socio-spatial history, governance and politics of heritage, spatial ethnography, the Chinese history of cartography, socialist spatial practices, and the phenomenon of architectural mimicry and themed space in China. In particular, she shares a strong interest in revealing the underlying power structure behind contemporary society’s use of heritage and history, as well as the cultural heterogeneity interacting with the political and social divisions within society. She is also interested in how cultural powers shape the historic built environment and vice versa in consumer society and contemporary media-driven times.
Maxime Decaudin is a Senior Lecturer in Landscape Architecture at the National University of Singapore. Situated at the intersection of landscape studies and environmental history, his research examines the historical agency of nature in Asian contexts. Before completing a PhD in Art History at Sorbonne Université titled ‘A Barren Rock’: An Environmental History of Hong Kong Landscapes under British Colonization, 1794-1898, Maxime Decaudin was emerging curator at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) in 2018-2019 and a doctoral fellow at the French Centre for Research on Contemporary China (CEFC) in 2016-2017. Maxime is a licensed French architect who graduated from École Spéciale d’Architecture in Paris and has been teaching landscape architecture for more than ten years.
Xiaomin Jin is a PhD from University of Rome “La Sapienza”, specializing in the history and conservation of architecture. She has had transcultural learning and internship experiences. Besides the University of Rome, she has also studied at Southeast University, Nanjing University, and the University of Virginia. Through her international practice, she has engaged in various architectural and landscape conservation projects, including the restoration of former residence of Pearl S. Buck and museum design, case studies and planning of national heritage park with archaeological sites of Xi’an Daming Palace, as well as the conservation of Ta Keo Temple in Angkor. Her doctoral research focuses on the conservation of historic gardens and landscape. She’s interested in the perception of different cultural and identity imaginations shaping garden spaces, to provide new perspectives for the conservation of historical garden as “living monument”. Through a comparative study of European and Chinese landscape culture, she is aiming to offer an innovative interpretation that challenges current theories and practices in heritage conservation.
Clara Rellensmann (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.), is a cultural studies scholar specialized in the field of heritage conservation and the built environment. She has nearly fifteen years of experience in conservation planning, research and teaching in different historic and cultural contexts. Within the practical field of conservation, she has worked for authorizing bodies such as UNESCO and ICOMOS, as well as, for grass-roots initiatives. For her PhD research, Clara investigated nuances of political appropriation in heritage conservation and identity politics in Myanmar. Since 2017, Clara Rellensmann has been working as Teaching and Research Associate at the Department of Architectural Conservation of the Brandenburg University of Technology. Her research interests include heritage politics, participatory practices in heritage-making and heritage as a resource for working towards social and environmental sustainability.
Clara Rellensmann is a member of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies, a founding member of Haus Döschnitz e.V. and a member of the ICOMOS International Committee on Risk Preparedness. From 2020 to 2017, she served as a board member of ICOMOS International and in 2019/2020 as an expert on ICOMOS’ World Heritage Panel.
Chang-Xue Shu is a historian and conservator with a background in architecture, urban studies, and history of science. She focuses on rediscovering historical legacy at the intersection of intellectual spheres and physical environments, with a particular interest in the 19th and 20th century engineering knowledge across China, Europe and North America. Since 2017, she has joined KU Leuven, Belgium, for undertaking the Marie-Curie postdoctoral project “Fired Clay in the Built Environment” (EU 2020), and taught in the Leuven Master program of Conservation of Monuments and Sites. Earlier on, she held research fellowships at the Needham Research Institute, University of Cambridge (2015-16) and the Polytechnical University of Milan (2010-13). Her research has also gained support from Belgium’s Research Foundation Flanders, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, and the National Research Council of Italy – Institute for Conservation and Valorisation of Cultural Heritage. She has practiced with World Heritage, national and local monuments but also uncharted historical sites, firstly as an architect, planner and surveyor, and later as a conservator, conservation scientist, historian and educator.
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Enquiry: jojohl@hku.hk
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