Dr ZHANG, Zimu    張子木 博士
Assistant Professor
Department of Literature and Cultural Studies
Contact
ORCiD
0000-0002-8811-9246
Phone
(852) 2948 8537
Email
zhangzimu@eduhk.hk
Address
10 Lo Ping Road, Tai Po, New Territories, Hong Kong
Website
https://pappl.eduhk.hk/rich/web/person.xhtml?pid=302150&name=ZHANG, Zimu
Scopus ID
57929327300
SDGs
3 - Good Health and Well-Being
5 - Gender Equality
6 - Clean Water and Sanitation
11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
13 - Climate Action
14 - Life Below Water
15 - Life on Land
Research Interests
Environmental Humanities
Blue Humanities
Visual Culture
Moving Image, Documentary, Art
Chinese Independent Film

Personal Profile

Zimu Zhang is an environmental humanities scholar working on visual culture, eco-cinema and ecofeminist arts. She is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Literature and Cultural Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong. She has been a visiting research fellow at several global institutions, including the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, LMU (2022), VisitANTS Fellow in Critical Studies of Biodiversity and the Anthropocene at the University of Oulu, Finland(2023), and a Worldmaking China Fellow at Heidelberg University (2025). Along with her academic research, Zimu also practices filmmaking and curation.


Research Interests
Environmental Humanities
Blue Humanities
Visual Culture
Moving Image, Documentary, Art
Chinese Independent Film

Research Outputs
Scholarly Books, Monographs and Chapters
Chapter in an edited book (author)
Zimu Zhang (2025). Village Film and Place-based Film Archive: Towards an Ecological and Archival Chinese Independent Documentary. Chris Berry, Luke Robinson, Sabrina Qiong Yu, Lydia Dan Wu, Chinese Independent Cinema: Past, Present and A Questionable Future (261-283). Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789463722575/chinese-independent-cinema#toc
Zimu Zhang (2021). Social Media Art Practices as Prefigurative Politics: Echoes from China. edited by Guobin Yang, Wei Wang, in "Engaging Social Media in China: Platforms, Publics, and Production" (179-200). Michigan, US: Michigan State University Press.

Journal Publications
Publication in refereed journal
Zimu Zhang (2025). Water on cross-border screens, Hong Kong water tales from the 1960s. Journal of Chinese Cinemas, 19(1), 6-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508061.2025.2510066
Ampersand Pasley, Sean Sturm, Darlin Ibarguen Asprilla, Manal El Mazbouh, Iida Kauhanen, Carolina Peña, Melinda Russial, Jamie Wang, Fiona Westbrook, Zimu Zhang, Karmen Zheng (2025). Navigating academic non/sense: A collective coda on response-able research ethics. Knowledge Cultures, 13(1), 163-174. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc13120258
Zimu Zhang, Jamie Wang, Karmen Zheng (2025). Conferencing as Environing with Care: Organising an Environmental Humanities Symposium in Hong Kong. Knowledge Cultures, 13(1), 139-162. https://doi.org/10.22381/kc13120257
Zimu Zhang (2025). Free-Roaming Bovids in Hong Kong, Worlding the More-than-human Care. European Journal of Cultural Studies, online first, forthcoming.
Zimu Zhang (2023). Artistic sousveillance in the societal surveillant assemblage: On Dragonfly Eyes and Eye Contact. Journal of Visual Art Practice, 22(1), 9-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/14702029.2022.2123628
Johnathan Harrington, Zimu Zhang (2022). Negotiating Chinese Youth Cyber Nationalism through Play Methods. British Journal of Chinese Studies, 12, 114-132, Article 2.
Zimu Zhang (2022). Ecological and Archival Practice in Village Films: An Interview with Guo Jing. Chinese Independent Cinema Observer, 4, 280-293.

Conference Papers
Invited conference paper
Zimu Zhang (2024, November). Free Roaming Bovids in Hong Kong, A Complicated More-than-human. The Hong Kong 2023 Humanities Conference on Comparative Cultures of Care, Hong Kong. https://www.eduhk-irccs.com/hongkong2023humanitiesconferenceoncomparativeculturesofcare
Zimu Zhang (2024, May). Amphibiousness Worlding and Eco-feminist Speculations of the Chinese Pearl River Delta. 2024 Environmental Humanities Symposium “A Gathered Dialogue: Eco-afterlives and Slow Hope”, Hong Kong. https://www.eduhk-irccs.com/eco-afterlivesandslowhope
Zimu Zhang (2023, June). Death in the Cryosphere, Mourning the Anthropocene Loss. Paper presented at International Symposium on “Affective Anthropocene: Contextualizing Feelings and Environments under Climate Change”, Hong Kong/Online.
Zimu Zhang (2022, April). Green Elegies: Ecofeminist Reading of Toxicity and Trauma in the Making of Chinese Ecological Civilization. Paper presented at International Symposium on Cloud, Heat, Sea, Wind in the Light of Ecological Civilization, Hong Kong/Online.
Refereed conference paper
Zimu Zhang (2023, July). Speculative More-than-Human Indigenous Community as Ecocritical Practices in the Southern China Waterscape. Paper presented at “Reclaiming the Commons” joint conference of The Association for the Study of Literature and Environment (ASLE) and The Association for Environmental Studies and Sciences (AESS), Oregon, US/online.
Zimu Zhang (2023, May). Can Awkward Humans Dream About Free Roaming Bovids?. Paper presented at The Sustainable Science Days Conference, Helsinki, Finland.

Creative and Literary Works, Consulting Reports and Case Studies
Film, video
Zimu Zhang (2023). Letter to T: in nuclearity, we are connected. Singapore: Asian Film Archive. https://asianfilmarchive.org/event-calendar/monographs-2023-letter-to-t-in-nuclearity-we-are-connected/
Zimu Zhang (2023). [film curation]Viral Memo: Camera Eyes on the Biopolitics of COVID-19 in China. Finland
Zimu Zhang, Zheng Lu Xinyuan (2018). [film]Just Like Any Other Night. China
Zimu Zhang (2017). [film] Letter from Xiaobei. China

Projects
Tracing the Chinese Pearl River Waterscape through Eco-arts
The Pearl River is the second-largest river system in China after the Yangtze River. Its
three major tributaries (West River, North River, and East River) and vast river networks connecting with the South China Sea shape and nourish the Pearl River Delta
(PRD), making it one of the most populous urban clusters and creative hubs in the
world. However, cultural and artistic impressions regarding the Pearl River are much
impaired compared with the Yellow River and Yangtze River, which are often intricately
associated with the Chinese national ethos and central plains landscape. This research
aims to address this by tracing the existing artistic narrative of the Pearl River using
contemporary art practices, as well as to enlarge our conception of a river from a linear
water body to a vast water system with a co-constituting hydrosocial relationship with
human society and the more-than-human world. The Pearl River, apart from providing
natural water resources and a habitat for the delta’s biodiverse communities, is also one
of the most human-engineered rivers to further develop a water-centric and amphibious
economy and culture. As the PRD region undergoes rapid urbanisation and development,
particularly with construction of the Greater Bay Area (GBA), it has become a contact
zone for constant negotiations between land and water, anthropocentric development,
and the more-than-human world, amidst increasing environmental hazards (Wang and
Rainbow, 2020). The role of the Pearl River and its cultural and aesthetic agencies has
become more crucial for researchers and the general public to understand the shifting
ecological and cultural landscape of the region, as well as its translocal impact.
Departing from the interdisciplinary field of environmental humanities, blue humanities,
and creative arts, this research aims to explore the complex nature of human–river
relations through the vernacular ecological art practices of the PRD region.
Project Start Year: 2026, Principal Investigator(s): ZHANG, Zimu
SDGs Information: 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation, 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities, 14 - Life Below Water, 15 - Life on Land
 
Mapping Contemporary Ecological Moving Image Practices in the Pearl River Delta Region (PRD)

Project Start Year: 2024, Principal Investigator(s): ZHANG, Zimu