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The number of contemporary art exhibitions in China has been increasing year by year, leading to a growing number of professionals entering the field of curating. Curators become a promising profession with potential for development. However, this phenomenon has also made curating gradually evolve into a domain without barriers to entry, attracting many opportunistic individuals who plan low-quality exhibitions for economic purposes or only market demands. This phenomenon has hurt art development and has left audiences confused, leading to misunderstandings. Contemporary art in China seems to imitate Western art without creative insights, and curators appear to lack professional standards, as anyone who can collect artwork can be called a curator. Against this background, this thesis is to reconsider the role of curators in the contemporary art field. To better understand the role of curators in the art field, this thesis focuses on independent curators since they are closely related to the development of contemporary art, compared with the curators who engage in conventional displays of traditional collections in public museums. When looking back at the development of Chinese contemporary art, you will find that independent curators emerged during the same period as contemporary art in China, and they use exhibition practices to showcase their curatorial ideas as critics. In order to have a more comprehensive understanding of the role of curators in the development of contemporary art, this article selects two representative exhibition cases, which are the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition held in the National Art Museum in 1989, the first contemporary art exhibition in China, and the Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World exhibition held in the Guggenheim Museum in the United States from 2017 to 2018. In these two cases, curators lead curatorial practices and include their distinct artistic concepts. The former represents the development of contemporary art in China from underground to official recognition, while the latter represents the reflection of Chinese contemporary art on the world. The thesis begins by conducting a literature review to examine the meaning of curators in Chinese and Western contexts and explain what "independent curators" means in this paper. The next part discusses the functions of independent curators from various perspectives and their relationship with contemporary art. Lastly, an overview of the development of contemporary art in China offers readers a macroscopic understanding. The case study section includes the China/Avant-Garde Exhibition and Art and China after 1989: Theater of the World for detailed analysis, introducing the background of the exhibitions, the curators and their concepts, the exhibition contents (artworks and artists), and the challenges and solutions faced by independent curators in these exhibitions. In the final part, literature and cases combine to explain the promoting role of independent curators in Chinese contemporary art from different perspectives. Through the analysis of case studies, this article aims to examine the role of independent curators in promoting contemporary art in China. It seeks to fill the gap in existing English literature on the study of contemporary Chinese curators and provide valuable insights for individuals looking to develop in curating.

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Contemporary mainland Chinese cinema has witnessed a notable rise in female-centered movies, coinciding with the emergence of third wave feminism and feminist consumerism in 21st-century media culture. Underpinned by feminist film theory, this thesis submerges into the ocean of contemporary mainland Chinese cinema, exploring the portrayal of femininity over the past two decades. Using Fairclough’s three-dimensional model in critical discourse analysis, the study specifically delves into the female gaze in the acclaimed 2021 film, B for Busy, which attained the highest rating on the Chinese IMDB Douban during that year. The research aims to capture the evolution of femininity in mainland China’s cinema since the 1990s and, more specifically, how it challenges gender normativity through cinematic language within the broader sociocultural milieu. Additionally, this thesis further investigates the discursive aspect and sociocultural aspect of B for Busy, examining its audience reception and how it reflects post-feminism with Chinese characteristics in mainland Chinese media discourse. By doing so, it contributes to a comprehensive understanding of the reconstruction of femininity in contemporary mainland Chinese cinema and its resonance within China’s evolving sociocultural landscape. This research serves as a supplement to existing scholarship in the field, shedding light on the intricate intersections between gender representation, feminism, and societal change in mainland Chinese cinema.

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The role of the curator in the selection, presentation and organisation of artworks is a well-established and researched practice. However, the functions of curatorial practices within a Post-Internet era, and by consequence a Post-Internet art sector, are not so clearly defined or explored. Within this research, curatorial texts are used as a representative case study of the broader developments within art curation and museum practices within, and in response to, the Post-Internet shift, as it is an artistic genre which already presents the questions of the role of the internet and the digital in contemporary society. The framework of curatorial texts will serve to explore in depth how methods of presenting and viewing artworks have developed and have also brought to light curatorial practices of pre-internet artworks that had previously not been so evident. Throughout this thesis, a particular emphasis will be given to analysing the role of text as a frame for artworks, in order to provide a foundation for comparing presentational methods in physical and digital exhibitions. This research does not aim to describe Post-Internet curatorial practices, as it is a continually evolving field which cannot be fully defined in the present, but to provide an insight into how it is evolving, and to develop an academic foundation from which it can continue to be analysed and questioned.

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From time immemorial people have been telling stories. Storytelling, whether fictional or factual, is said to be part and parcel of our societies and cultures. The way stories spread may have changed drastically over time, but they are still serving similar purposes: entertaining, educating, contributing to cultural preservation and fostering moral values. Today, authors, illustrators, painters and other artists revisit some of the stories that have fascinated them in their childhood, or even older tales dating back to centuries ago. As observed by Linda Hutcheon in her book dedicated to a theory on adaptation (2013), it appears that change is inevitable – but may be unconscious – when it comes to adaptations of tales. As a former Cub Scout leader, this issue has directly awakened my interest, hence the desire to further investigate one of the stories I’ve enjoyed the most: The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling (1894, 1895). The present dissertation focuses on The Jungle Book (1894) and The Second Jungle Book (1895) by Kipling, two books that have inspired countless adaptations over the span of decades. Given the high pedagogical potential of The Jungle Books (Kist, 2015; Sarigue, 2011; Shamsul Islam, in The Kipling Society, 1975), the main aim of this thesis is to examine the way the Mowgli stories from The Jungle Books have evolved, and more specifically how the pedagogical dimension in the books has been adapted in two Belgian twenty-first revisitations: the graphic novel Le Dernier Livre de la jungle by Desberg, Reculé and de Moor (2004, 2006, 2006, 2007), and the scout booklet Jungle à la meute (2013). With a view to investigating the heritage of the pedagogical dimension in the Mowgli stories in two later revisitations of Kipling’s work, key concepts and terms will be further defined: the phenomenon of adaptation (mainly based on Hutcheon’s theory (2013) and on Mitaine, Roche, and Schmitt-Pitiot’s study on the graphic novel as an adaptation (2015)), the educational role of literature, as well as the concept of ‘moral values’. Based on a sound analysis of each work (summary of the stories, illustrations, authors, title), the pedagogical value of each case will be investigated with regards to its context of creation and reception, bringing into focus the rise of the graphic novel in Belgium (Baetens, 2001 & 2015; Baetens & Frey, 2015; Dozo, B-O. & Preyat, F., 2010), the development of the Scout Movement in Belgium (Scieux, 2007), the late nineteenth-century India and England (Cook, 2006; Matthew, 2000) and many other interesting parts of our History.

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Capturing beauty is an inherent desire and instinct for human beings who have utilized various tools to memorize the reminiscence of beloved ones, objects and scenery throughout the history of civilization. Before the advent of camera, portraits, paintings, woodcut artwork and other medium were made up to meet the requirement of humans’ need of remembrance. The advent and evolution of cameras marked a significant milestone in memorializing beloved ones, objects, and scenic views, giving rise to photography in the modern age. In contemporary society, photography has become a conventional ritual of our daily lives that serves as a means to preserve cherished memories during travel or social gatherings, which arouse the studies in the realm of tourism photography. Whereas, my focus in this research is on the realm of music photography. By narrowing the research scope, I intend to gain deeper insights into the role of ordinary audiences in shaping the production of live music space during rock performances. The aim of this master thesis research attempts to indicate how audiences engage in live music photography and Internet sharing to influence the construction of social space within music venues, with a specific emphasis on the rock genre. In this research, I will narrow the research scope down to a certain music genre, by observing ordinary audiences’ music photography in the live rock performance, for the writer myself has always been engaged with the live shows of this music genre the most. Performers consist of rock musicians from major and independent record companies. The research will employ qualitative methods, including interviews with active audiences within the rock scene. The open-ended questions will delve into the participants’ opinions, feelings and psychological motivation concerning live music engagement and photography. The findings will shed light on how audiences utilize live music photography and internet sharing to impact the production of live music space, providing valuable insights into the prevailing trends of live music photographing. By focusing on the rock music genre, this study aims to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the role of live music photography in shaping social space in the modern music scene.