Stories and Possibility of Social Change in Rural China

A year after first sharing her work at Welcome to Chinatown, Swedish-born Chinese writer, photographer, ethnographer, and organizer Vivianne Zhang Wei returns to reflect on her over two years of sustained engagement with grassroots stories and experiences of China's rural transformation.

Through vignettes from her Chinese Farm Chronicles project and the past year of academic research, along with current efforts to cultivate Common Ground • 乡遇, Vivianne will trace the evolution of her continuous thinking on rural development in China and her own practice of documenting it.

Why are we drawn to stories of social change in other contexts, and what responsibilities accompany this engagement? She will explore these questions and share thoughts-in-progress on how she plans to ensure her work contributes to making visible the existence and potential of alternatives, rather than simply reproducing dominant narratives.

The session is free to join, but RSVP is required due to limited capacity! We warmly invite those who can to make a suggested $10 donation to the Catskills Agrarian Alliance (CAA), supporting their work in fostering a healthy and just food system in the Catskills region of New York, NYC, and beyond.

👉 RSVP here — limited spots available!