Currents

Dekoloniale Berlin Residency Berlin, Germany, 2024

For the Dekoloniale Berlin Residency 2024 in collaboration with Contemporary And (C&) and Stadtmuseum Berlin, Ming worked with Yangkun Shi to create a three-piece installations, currently on view at St. Nikolai Church in Berlin from November 2024 through May 2025.

The work brings to light the obscured history of German colonialism in China through an interdisciplinary approach combining photography, video, writing, archival imagery, and the explorations of foodways. It traces the legacies of this history across urban landscapes from Qingdao to Berlin, exposing the forgotten past and its underlying violence. Intertwining personal and historical narratives, the installation challenges the colonial gaze and reframe it to re-center reflect contemporary migration experiences.

For the exhibition, Ming directed a 12-minute video piece titled “Currents of Memory," which delves into her childhood memories of Qingdao’s beach and examines the erasure of Chinese lives and voices during its transformation under German colonial rule, interwoven with her own experience in Germany.

As part of the residency, she is staging a performative food workshop at Gropius Bau, exploring how colonialism influenced the translocation of plants and tastes.

The China Album of Hugo von Königslöw

LWL-Museum Henrichshütte, Hattingen, Germany, 2024

For the exhibition The China Album of Hugo von Königslöw (July — September 2024), Ming contributed a critical perspective to the exhibition examining the photo album of mining assessor Hugo von Königslöw, who traveled to Qingdao in 1898 to survey natural resources, particularly coal.

Her essay for the museum catalogue, What Pictures (not) Tell, explores the spread of photography in colonial contexts and highlights the Chinese experience under German colonial rule. She connects this to global anti-Chinese sentiment, such as the impact of the Chinese Exclusion Act. Her pictures of Qingdao today are exhibited alongside the historical photographs.

Documenting China, Stories of Change

Photoville Festival, New York, 2018

From the surprising fate of China’s shrinking cities to the quiet resilience of young migrant women, this exhibition—curated by Charlotte Ming and David M. Barreda—features long-term projects by Chinese visual storytellers examining a country in constant transformation. Presented in collaboration with the Lishui Photography Festival.

China Through Chinese Eyes

Photoville Festival, New York, 2017

Ming co-curated the group exhibition China Through Chinese Eyes with David Barreda and Yan Cong. The exhibition showcased the work of Chinese photojournalists and visual storytellers, many of whose images had not been published or exhibited outside China before.