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Prof. PAN Lu
PolyU Scholars Hub

Prof. PAN Lu

Associate Head and Associate Professor

Visual culture and art, urban culture, media theories, space, film, cultural memory, war monuments in modern and contemporary Greater China, inter–asia cultural studies, colonialism in East Asia, island studies

Research Overview

Lu Pan's research interests cover a wide range of topics in Cultural Studies, with a focus on visual culture, city, media and memory. She is author of Aestheticizing Public Space: Street Visual Politics in East Asian Cities (2015), In–Visible Palimpsest: Memory, Space and Modernity in Berlin and Shanghai (2016) and Image, Imagination and Imaginarium: Remapping World War II Monuments in Greater China (2020). She is chief editor of The 70's Biweekly: Social Activism and Alternative Cultural Production in 1970s Hong Kong (Hong Kong: HKU Press, 2023) and The (Im)possibilities of Art Archives: Theories and Experience in/from Asia (Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024).

Dr. Pan is actively engaged in creating new approaches in Humanities that bridge academic research and artistic/curatorial practices.

In addition to her academic research and teaching, Lu Pan is an active curator and video artist. Her essay films, co-directed with Bo Wang, include Traces of an Invisible City (2016), Miasma, Plants and Export Paintings (2017), which received Award for Excellence, 32nd Image Forum Festival, Tokyo, Japan, and Many Undulating Things (2019). She was one of the curators of Kuandu Biennale, Taipei, 2018. In collaboration with Japanese artist Yu Araki, she finished experimental film Anachronic Chronicles: Voyages Inside/Out Asia in 2021, based on home videos shot between the 1960s and the 1990s from around East Asia. In 2026, she completed her independently directed short, Island Fever commissioned by Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea.

Education and Academic Qualifications

  • PhD, Dept. of Comparative Literature, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR
  • M.A., Intercultural Anglophone Studies, University Bayreuth, Germany
  • B.A., Chinese as Foreign Language, Shanghai International Studies University, China

Academic and Professional Experience

  • Visiting scholar, School of Fine Arts, Taipei National University of the Arts, Taiwan (19 March–25 March 2018)
  • Artist–in–Residence, Center for Art and Urbanistic, Berlin, Germany (1 November–31 December 2016)
  • Researcher–in–Residence, Fukuoka Asian Art Museum, Fukuoka, Japan (21 May–23 June 2016)
  • Lecturer, School of Modern Languages and Cultures, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (September 2013–May 2014)
  • Visiting Fellow, Harvard–Yenching Institute, Special Training Program in Urban Studies (September 201l– June 2012)
  • College Lecturer, Domain of Media and Cultural Studies, The University of Hong Kong SPACE Community College, Hong Kong (August 2010–July 2015)
  • Visiting Scholar, in Center for Metropolitan Studies, Technische Universität Berlin, Germany (June 2008–September 2008 and July 2009–August 2009)

Research Interests

  • visual culture and art
  • urban culture
  • media theories
  • space
  • film
  • cultural memory
  • war monuments in modern and contemporary Greater China
  • colonialism in East Asia
  • island studies

Research Output

Monographs:

  • Image, Imagination and Imaginarium: Remapping World War II Monuments in Greater China. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. 2020.
  • In–Visible Palimpsest: Memory, Space and Modernity in Berlin and Shanghai. Bern: Peter Lang, Eurosinica Vol.15, 2016.
  • Aestheticizing Public Space: Street Visual Politics in East Asian Cities. Bristol/Chicago:Intellect/U Chicago Press, 2015.

 

Edited Volumes:

  • The (Im)possibility of Art Archive: Theories and Experience in/from Asia. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024. 
  • 藝術檔案(庫)的可能與不可能:亞洲的理論與經驗 (The [Im]possibility of Art Archive: Theories and Experience in/from Asia). Edited by Lu Pan and Kaichung Lee. Shanghai and Hong Kong: KCL Publishing and Phantom Archives, 2023.
  • The 70's Biweekly: Social Activism and Alternative Cultural Production in 1970s Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2023.      
  • Politics and Aesthetics of Creativity: City, Culture and Space in East Asia. Edited by Lu Pan, Dixon HWWong and Karin Ling–Fung Chau. Los Angeles and Hong Kong, 2015.
  • Lu Pan and Bo Wang. “Wardian case, glass, and fountain: A reflection on the history of shopping malls in Hong Kong.” International Communication Gazette 87, no. 1 (2025): 71–86. https://doi.org/10.1177/17480485241261579.
  • Repertoire of Youth Activism in 1970s Hong Kong:The 70s Biweeklyand Experimental Cinema.”Cogent Arts & Humanities 11, no. 1 (2024): 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2024.2357885.
  • Lu Pan and Bo Wang. “The Obsolete and The Resurrected: Archaeological Cinema in Asia.” Non-Fiction 05 (2023).  E-Journal of Open City Documentary Festival, London. https://opencitylondon.com/non-fiction/.
  • New Left without Old Left: The 70’s Biweeklyand Youth Activism in 1970s Hong Kong.”Modern China 48, no. 5 (2022): 1080–1112. https://doi.org/10.1177/00977004221091924.
  • Lu Pan and John Solomon. “Bordering Hong Kong: Towards a heterotopic ‘elsewhere.’” Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art, Special Issue “Bordering Hong Kong: Aesthetics and Politics” 8, no.1 (2021): 3–12. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00034_2.
  • Between Iconic Image and (Artificial) Ruins: Shanghai Sihang Warehouse and World War II Memory in China.”Visual Communication(2021): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1177/1470357220964819.

The Ornament and Other Stateless 'Foreigners': A Dialogue on a Poetics of Unbordering.”Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 8, no.1 (2021): 87–96. https://doi.org/10.1386/jcca_00039_1.

ソーシャリー・エンゲイジド・アーカイヴ 東アジアにおけるアート・メディア・公共の記憶 [Socially Engaged Archives: Art, Media, and Public Memory in East Asia].”RELATIONS (2020): 1-21. 

(Forgotten) Landscape of Imperial War Memories in a Colonial City: Hong Kong's Cenotaph and Beyond (1920s – 1960s).”The Chinese Historical Review 27, no. 2 (2020): 93–118. https://doi.org/10.1080/1547402X.2020.1831174.

Imagining Asia through a Tour of the Orient: Cathay Pacific’s Contemporary Art in Asia Exhibition of 1965.Twentieth-Century China 45, no. 3 (2020): 308–330. https://doi.org/10.1353/tcc.2020.0027.

Lu Pan and Bo Wang. “Traces of an Invisible City.” Landscape Architecture Frontiers 5, no. 2 (2017): 146–153.

Translating visual archives: on the Making of the New through Three Cases of Hong Kong.” Journal of Visual Art Practice 16, no. 3 (2017): 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2017.1399627.

The Anxiety and Urgency of History: Pan Lu in Conversation with Lee Kai Chung and Teng Chao-Ming.Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 16, no. 4 (2017): 77–86.

Archival Flows: Fragment, Material, and Memory in/through the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.” Yishu: Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art 16, no. 4 (2017): 14–24.

Abandoned Negatives, Themeless Parks: Images of Contemporary China in Two Photographic Projects.” Journal for Cultural Research 21, no. 1 (2017): 33–50. https://doi.org/10.1080/14797585.2017.1282222.

Marginality as Centrality: South Korea’s Alternative Creative Cities.Creative Industries Journal 8, no. 1 (2015): 39-57. https://doi.org/10.1080/17510694.2015.1048067.

Writing at the End of the History: Reflections on Two Cases of Graffiti Writing in Hong Kong.” Public Art Dialogue 4, no. 1 (2014): 147–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/21502552.2014.878487.

Remembering the Pain of ‘Others’: Reflections on the Shanghai Jewish Refugees Museum and Beyond.”  The War Memoryscapes in Asia Project. March 2014. http://www.warinasia.com/iris-pan-lu.

Who is Occupying Wall and Street: Graffiti and Urban Spatial Politics in Contemporary China.”Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 28, no. 1 (2014): 136–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/10304312.2013.854867.

Nostalgia as Resistance: Memory, Space and the Competing Modernities in Berlin and Shanghai.European Journal of East Asia Studies 12 (2013): 135–162.

Visualizing Amnesia: Memory and Space in the Photography of Shanghai’s ‘New Village.’” Media Fields Journal 5 (2012): 1–14.

The Invisible Turn to the Future: Commemorative Culture in Contemporary Shanghai.” Culture Unbound 4, no. 1 (2012): 121–146. https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.124121.

The Remaking of Shanghai Local Spaces.” Spacesofidentity.Net 8, no. 1 (2008). https://doi.org/10.25071/1496-6778.17740.  

  • “Introduction.” The (Im)possibility of Art Archives: Theories and Experience in/from Asia. Edited by Lu Pan. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.
  • “編者的話 (Introduction).” 藝術檔案(庫) 的可能與不可能:亞洲的理論與經驗 (The [Im]possibility of Art Archive: Theories and Experience in/from Asia). Edited by Lu Pan and Kaichung Lee. Shanghai and Hong Kong: KCL Publishing and Phantom Archives, 2023.
  • Introduction and Chapter 5 “The Making of an Aesthetic Counterpublic in 1970s Hong Kong: A Visual Exploration of The 70's Biweekly.” Edited by Lu Pan. The 70's Biweekly:Social Activism and Alternative Cultural Production in 1970s Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 2023, 1–25 and 113–140.
  • “Taipei's National Martyrs' Shrine: The Past and Present Lives of a Difficult Monument.” In Frontiers of Memory in the Asia-Pacific: Difficult Heritage and the Transnational Politics of Postcolonial Nationalism, 64–80. Edited by Shu-Mei Huang, Hyun Kyung Lee, and Edward Vickers. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2022.
  • “The Kitschy, the Shanzhai and the Ugly: Creating Architectural Utopia in Contemporary Chinese Cities.” In Creative industries in East Asia: Cultural politics, 47—74. Edited by Lu Pan, Takeshi Tanikawa, Noriko SUDO and Dixon H.W. Wong. Translated by Sasaki Gentaro. Tokyo: Shinwasha, 2015. (〈キッチュ、”山寨”、丑さ──现代中国の都市における建筑ユートピアの创造〉,佐々木玄太郎訳。 「东アジアのクリエイティヴ产业:文化のポリティクス」,谷川建司・须藤遥子・王向华[共編]。東京:森話社, 2015,47–74。)
  • Representations of “South of the Sea”: Renegotiating the Place of Hainan Island in Historical and Cultural Imaginations, General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, The Hong Kong SAR Government (Grant received: 01/2023).
  • “From The 70s Bi–weekly to Communiqué: Autonomous Media, Social Activism and Alternative Cultural Production in Hong Kong 1970s–1990s” General Research Fund, Research Grants Council, The Hong Kong SAR Government (Grant received: 06/2018)
  • “Remapping World War II Memory through Commemorative Artifacts in Contemporary Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan” Early Career Scheme, Research Grants Council, The Hong Kong SAR Government (Grant received: 06/2016)
  • “The New and Art Archives in Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan,” University’s Start–up Fund for New Recruits, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (Grant received: 04/2016)

 

Other Grants Received

  • “Grant for Translations of German Books into Other Languages,” for translating Boris Groys Über das Neue, Goethe Institute China (11/2016)
  • Translated from Boris Groys, Über das Neue. Chongqing: Chongqing University Press, 2018.
  • Translated from Sebastian Veg, “Democratic Modernism: Rethinking the politics of early twentieth century fiction in China and Europe,” in Studies on Modern Chinese Literature, Vol. 6 (2014), pp 1–27.

Esteem Measures

Journal Editorship

  • Indexer of Chinese-language publications, Foreign Language Index, Society of Contemporary Art Historians, U.S, (since June 2020).
  • Book Review Editor: China and Asia: A Journal in Historical Studies
  • International advisory board member of Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art
  • International advisory board member of Nuart Journal

Awards and Honors

  • Nomination in competition in film festivals
    • 2020 Int’l Competition, Arkipel – Jakarta Int’l Documentary & Experimental Film Festival, Indonesia
    • 2019 Int’l Competition, Open City Documentary Festival, London, UK
    • 2019 Compétition Internationale Burning Lights, Visions du Réel, Nyon, Switzerland
    • 2016 Asian Competition, DMZ Int’l Documentary Film Festival, South Korea
  • Film Awards
    • Winner of Award for Excellence, 2018 Image Forum Festival, Japan
  • Film Fund Awards
    • 2020 ACC CINEMA FUND, South Korea
    • 2016 Film Grant, Film Market, DMZ Documentary Film Festival, South Korea
dr-pan-lu-publication-image-The-Impossibility-of-Art-Archives

The [Im]possibilities of Art Archives: Theories and Experience in/from Asia. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan, 2024.

The (Im)possibility of Art Archive: Theories and Experience in/from Asia

The (Im)possibility of Art Archive: Theories and Experience in/from Asia. Shanghai and Hong Kong: KCL Publishing and Phantom Archives, 2023.

dr-pan-lu-publication-the-70-s-biweekly

The 70's Biweekly: Social Activism and Alternative Cultural Production in 1970s Hong Kong. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. 2023.

dr-pan-lu-publication-image-imagination-imaginarium

Image, Imagination and Imaginarium: Remapping World War II Monuments in Greater China. Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. 2021.

dr-pan-lu-publication-in-visible-palimpsest-memory

In–Visible Palimpsest: Memory, Space and Modernity in Berlin and Shanghai. Bern: Peter Lang, Eurosinica Vol.15, 2016.

dr-pan-lu-publication-aestheticizing-public-space

Aestheticizing Public Space: Street Visual Politics in East Asian Cities. Bristol/Chicago:Intellect/U Chicago Press, 2015.

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