About
About
Daoism, cinema and wellbeing:
Meditative Cinema
The Project
The interdisciplinary project “Daoism, cinema and wellbeing: Meditative Cinema” shifts the debates on ecology, cinema and wellbeing through the lens of Daoist philosophy, decolonizing Western-centric paradigms in film theory and philosophy.
It systematically engages an ancient, vital yet living non-Western thought, Daoism, with cinema to renew our understanding of cinema and moving image art; and brings Daoist film philosophy to reshape how we perceive human and more-than-human relationship, and the wellbeing of all. Constructing Daoist conceptual frameworks and situating film within a broader transcultural art-historical lineage, it seeks to expand how we experience cinema and perceive our place in the world through film. The project reveals that Daoism can activate cinema’s meditative power, highlighting its healing and restorative capacity in turbulent times.
“Daoism, cinema and wellbeing: Meditative Cinema” received AHRC Catalyst Award for the period of 2025-2028.
The Team
Principal Investigator
Kiki Tianqi Yu
Reader in Cinematic Art at the Department of Film Studies and Centre for Film and Ethics, Queen Mary University of London
Her research explores cinema in relation to Asian philosophies, art histories, personal expression, and decolonisation. Her books include, as the author, ‘My’ Self on Camera: First Person Documentary Practice in an Individualising China (Edinburgh University Press, 2019); as the co-editor, China’s iGeneration Cinema and Moving Image Culture for the 21st Century (Bloomsbury, 2014), the Special Issue of Studies in Documentary Film on feminist approaches in East Asian Women’s personal cinema (14:1 2020), Essay Film and Narrative Techniques (Intellect, 2025), and the forthcoming Sinophone Women’s Cinema and Women Filmmakers (Edinburgh University Press, 2027).
Project collaborators
Paul Gladston
Inaugural Judith Neilson Chair Professor of Contemporary Art
UNSW
Prof. Gao Shiqiang
Deputy Head of School of Intermedia Art
The China Academy of Art
Michelle Yu
Director
Global Culture Communication & Development Ltd (GCCD)
Jayne Beaumont
Co-founder
Beaumont Awareness
Advisory board
David Chai
Chinese University of Hong Kong
Victor Fan
King’s College London
Anat Pick
Queen Mary University of London
Ashvin Devasundaram
Queen Mary University of London
Janet Harbord
Queen Mary University of London
Steven Eastwood
Queen Mary University of London
