Tengjin Bian

Tengjin joined Loughborough University as a Postgraduate Researcher in October 2022, having previously obtained a BA in Marketing and an MA in Art from Naning University of Chinese Medicine and Huaqiao Univeristy.

As an independent visual artist, Tengjin try to use various materials and digital technologies to create posters, videos, installations and other artworks, explore the concept of the body under different eras and discourses, and the identity and gender superimposed on the body, cognition and technology the underlying cultural phenomenon.She is now focusing on posthuman visual culture research and artistic practice.

Supervisors: Dr Rachael Grew and Dr Catherine Rees.

From the perspective of posthumanism theory, this research attempts to combine the knowledge from the fields of visual arts and queer studies to put drag performance into the posthuman context and explore how artists develop artistic practices around this theme and use the body as a battlefield by producing culture-questioning images. And this research attempts to re-theorize the concept of drag and provides a new theoretical framework for discussing the wider posthuman drag community.

Posthuman drag provides a place for the deconstruction of anthropocentrism and binary model through the specific and implementation of self-differentiating behaviours that enable an escape from norms and the sculpting of self-identity, and shifts the focus from previously discussed interrogations of gender to a more specific engagement with human embodiment. "I would rather be a Cyborg than a goddess."