Color photo of an Asian woman with dark hair standing against a concrete wall and smiling at the camera

Jenny Lin

Tsao Family Rome Prize
September 2, 2024–July 3, 2025
Profession
Associate Professor of Critical Studies, Roski School of Art and Design, University of Southern California
Project title
The Global Art-Fashion System: New Silk Roads through China, Italy, and the United States
Project description

My research and book project, The Global Art-Fashion System, investigates cross-cultural art and fashion exchanges amidst globalization. With historical reflection, I explore modern and contemporary collaborations between Italian, Chinese, and US artists, designers, fashion companies, and cultural institutions. I posit these cases as part of a global art-fashion system considered vis-à-vis China’s New Silk Road initiative and within the deeply rooted context of Rome as cosmopolitan, cultural crossroads. My research reveals that prevalent but overlooked transnational art-fashion nexuses importantly figure into the New Silk Road, shedding light on how governments and private industries bolster the global art-fashion system. Simultaneously, my book showcases Italian, Chinese, and US artists and designers who resist unsustainable globalized conditions with creative projects that empathetically and ethically cross borders.