The Dunhuang Foundation and Art Asia Archive in America presented a works-in-progress presentation by Xie Xiaoze, the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University and the 2017 Dunhuang Foundation Artist-in-Residence. Xie discussed his new artwork inspired by the collection of premodern Buddhist art at Dunhuang. Professor Stephen Teiser of Princeton University joined Xie in conversation and explored how new interpretations of archival material continued to illuminate contemporary life.

Xie Xiaoze received his Master of Fine Art degrees from the Central Academy of Arts & Design in Beijing and the University of North Texas. He has had solo exhibitions at the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, AZ; Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; Dallas Visual Art Center, TX; Modern Chinese Art Foundation, Gent, Belgium; Charles Cowles Gallery, New York; Chambers Fine Art, New York; Gallery Paule Anglim, San Francisco; Nicholas Metivier Gallery, Toronto; China Art Archives and Warehouse, Beijing; Gaain Gallery, Seoul; among others.  His work is in the permanent collection of such institutions as the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, San Jose Museum of Art and the Oakland Museum of California. Xie received the Painters and Sculptors Grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2013), Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2003) and artist awards from Phoenix Art Museum (1999) and Dallas Museum of Art (1996). Xie is the Paul L. & Phyllis Wattis Professor of Art at Stanford University.

Stephen F. Teiser is D.T. Suzuki Professor in Buddhist Studies and Professor of Religion at Princeton University. His most recent book is Readings of the Platform Sūtra (Columbia University Press, 2012), co-edited with Morten Schlütter. His 2006 book, Reinventing the Wheel: Paintings of Rebirth in Medieval Buddhist Temples (University of Washington Press), received the Prix Stanislas Julien, awarded by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, Institut de France. His new research examines healing liturgies contained among the medieval Chinese Buddhist manuscripts discovered in Dunhuang (northwest China). He is interested in the interaction between Buddhism and indigenous Chinese traditions, brought into focus through the wealth of Sūtra, non-canonical texts, and artistic evidence unearthed on the Silk Road.  In 2014, he was co-recipient (with Jacqueline I. Stone) of the Graduate Mentoring Award from Princeton’s McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. He currently serves as Director of Princeton’s Program in East Asian Studies.