From gunshots to hashtags: Transcultural curating in the #MeToo era

After the #MeToo movement kicked off in the United States in 2018, it found its way to China and has triggered a number of exhibition projects around the country, organized by young activists, artists and curators, which have galvanized transnational feminist exchanges in the past few years. The article analyses exhibitions such as The Voiceless Rise Up: #MeToo in China, Her Story: Eliminating Gender Violence 2020, Above Ground: 40 Moments of Transformation and Stand by Her, which consisted of works documenting sexual assault and the #MeToo movement in China, as well as of artworks that are dealing with issues concerning sexual assault, the One Child Policy, motherhood, queerness and empowerment. These exhibitions and the #MeToo movement, respectively, demonstrate a growing transnational interconnectedness among activists fighting towards common feminist goals. What is more, these exhibitions are under constant scrutiny and fear of being cancelled, which is evidence of an exhaustive struggle for the official acceptance of women’s rights and ‘radical’ artworks. This article gives an overview of these projects, their transnational interconnectedness, as well as their perception and reaction of the general public, the press and censors. The article argues for a shift from women-centred exhibitions to exhibitions with a strong activist/feminist agenda that are also part of an unprecedented transnational framework.