Shuhua Tang

Visualising Networks and Decolonising Collecting: Rediscovering the Acquisition History of the V&A Asia Collection, 1852-2023

I am a PhD student in Digital Humanities at UCL. My project is an AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Partnership between UCL and V&A. My research focuses on the V&A’s extensive Asia collection, which consists of over 165,000 objects from East Asia, South and South-East Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa, acquired between 1852 and 2023. By using text recognition and network visualisation techniques, I aim to build a comprehensive dataset of the collection’s provenance from the museum’s registers and archives and uncover the hidden networks of imperialism, trade, and collecting.

Before my PhD, I completed a Master’s in Digital Humanities at UCL and worked as a research assistant at the V&A, where I explored the quantitative aspects of the provenance of Chinese export watercolours. I also have experience in journalism, having worked as an editor at The New York Times Chinese website for five years.

My supervisors are Dr Elizabeth Lomas (UCL), Dr Jin Gao (UCL), Anna Jackson (V&A), Richard Palmer (V&A).

Projects

Research assistant, UCL-V&A Chinese Export Watercolours (CEW) Project, April 2024 – September 2024