Regenerative Artivism
Regenerative Artivism is a podcast about how Asian women artists, curators, and community organizers use creative, place-based practice to confront social and environmental injustice and shape more livable futures. Drawing on long-term field research in East Asia, with a strong focus on the Greater China region, art historian Meiqin Wang traces how socially engaged and ecological art grows from struggles over land and water, migration and memory, the everyday work of care, among others. Each episode is a guided case study of one practitioner or project, with close attention to process: how collaborations are built, what frictions they face, what kinds of care and maintenance are required, and what regeneration looks like when it is slow, contested, and material.
The podcast has completed Seasons 1 and 2 and is currently releasing Season 3, with new episodes published from September through December 2026.
Keywords: socially engaged art; ecological art; ecofeminism; environmental humanities; community art; environmental justice
Regenerative Artivism
Latest Episodes
Season 3 Prologue: Bodies of Resistance: Feminist Art, Memory, and Refusal
Season 3 of Regenerative Artivism moves from the Greater China region to Japan and Korea, following the podcast’s concerns into a historical terrain shaped by empire, war, militarization, state violence, disaster memory, and feminist refusal. T...
Season 2 Closing: Building the Conditions for Lasting Work
In this season finale, I return to the guiding question of season 2: what makes regenerative work last? Across six episodes set in northern Taiwan, Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Macau, and Quanzhou, we followed women who build the social, cultu...
Zheng Dazhen: West Street Good Life and the Politics of Heritage Regeneration
This episode follows a familiar feeling that many heritage streets now produce: the moment when a place shifts from lived neighborhood to curated backdrop. In Quanzhou’s West Street（Xijie，西街）, that shift is intensified by heritage recognition, ...
Debbie Tai: Playback Theatre and the Practice of Zero Distance Care
In this episode, I introduce Dai Biyun 戴碧筠, also known as Debbie Tai, a Macau theatre-maker and the co-founder, resident choreographer, and artistic director of Zero Distance Cooperative (ZDC, 零距離合作社). Working in a casino city shaped by speed, ...
Liu Yang: The Porous Institution and the Museum as Neighborhood Commons
This episode follows curator and public-program organizer Liu Yang (刘阳) into Huangbian Village (黄边村), an urban village in Guangzhou. Set beside Guangdong Times Museum (广东时代美术馆), a contemporary art museum embedded in a residential complex, Liu’s...