EACS-2016. Book of Abstracts

21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Chinese Studies 225 Aggeklint Eva (Stockholm University) Lust’s Victory over Chastity? Allegory as Tool of Expression in Contemporary Chinese Art Key words: Ma Liang, avant-garde photography, Journey to the West, allegory, The Virgin Queen In the last few decades a rapid and radical social change has been taking place in China. Conse- quently traditional values and conservative approaches to life are changing, making room for a greater consciousness of individual rights and of expressing an individual identity. This paper sets out to explore contemporary Chinese art as a barometer and an agent for affecting and shaping social processes and thereby contributing to the formation of a new different reality. Photography as a medium of expression offers a platform for presenting time and space both in fascinating and suggestive forms. In my paper I will address how dreamlike fabricated scenes may communicate meaning and how they play with the intertwined concepts of time and space. The internationally active Chinese artist Ma Liang’s (b. 1972) fabricated avant-garde photograph ’Pig-head lover’ or ’Book of Taboo’ of 2007 will serve as my case study. The scene shows a constructed reality in which a white-clad Asian looking woman is wearing a European Medieval ruff posing together with a semi-naked half-pig, half-human ’queer’ figure. Through the activation of Homi K. Bhabha’s ’Third Space’ an infinite space of connotations to in-between geog- raphies, cultures and imaginations is opened up. It will be shown that it is in the interaction of signs and symbols from certain time settings and in-between cultures that the unknown becomes known. Thus my paper investigates how the fictive persona ’Pigsy’ from the epic and vernacular novel “Journey to the West” of the 1590s is transformed and intertwined with narrative threads around the myth of Elisabeth I as the ’Virgin/Fairy Queen’ likewise a product of the 1590s, to discuss taboo issues of homosexuality in China of the 2000s. Eventually Ma Liang’s metamorphosis presents us with an allegory that distorts the normative mirror of representation, that is the hopeful idea of ‘Lust’s victory over Chastity’ in the near future. Belyaev Vladimir A. (non affiliated), Sidorovich Serguei V. (non affiliated) A Study of Countermarks on Coins with the Legend Dachao Tongbao Key words: Möngke, Arĭq Böke, Mongol Empire, Liupanshan, dachao The paper is devoted to the study of countermarks on silver coins with the legend dachao tongbao 大朝 通寶 , which originate from the hoard unearthed in 2007 in Longxi (Gansu prov., China). The classification of the coins with the legend dachao tongbao was offered with the emphasis of two main coin types on the basis of calligraphic peculiarities of the coins' legends. In the paper is presented a reconstruction of the countermarks and their classification in accordance to visual appearance. The peculiar technological feature of most coins with the legend dachao tongbao has been found it's the usage of readymade coins marked by countermarks, for the production of the mold. The correlation between the calligraphic styles of coins and groups of countermarks has been defined. Authors provide the version of the periodization of the two emissions of coins with the legend dachao tongbao. In the paper, is presented evidence that countermarking had relation to tax collection. For some of the countermarks was determined semantics, which helped to reliably estimate the period of circulation of the coins with legend dachao tongbao