The research and performance project Beyond the Shore is led by artist Alysa Leung (Alumnus of MA CTDD ‘22, UU) at artist collective If Time’s Limited (Hong Kong): Evelyn Wan is a dramaturg and occasional performer. Beyond the Shore focuses on Inter-Asian maritime histories and feminist mythologies, and is presented through the mediums of live performance, dance, film, wearable art, table-top board game, and sound art. The project builds an alternative archive on myths, goddesses, and oceanic culture in the Pacific Ocean, with our home city Hong Kong as anchor point. Recuperating stories of the human and more-than-human who inhabit the margins of history, the project makes use of critical fabulation (Saidiya Hartman) to retell forgotten histories from ancestral conflicts to mermaid myths to legendary female pirates. The project also takes on an ecofeminist and decolonial perspective to imagine sustainable futures for the Pacific Ocean. Through artistic research on marine life, pearling industries, and deep-sea mining, we build performative narratives to examine larger dynamics of slavery, colonialism, and extractivism amidst contemporary concerns of ocean sustainability and multi-species justice.  
 
This performance project is accompanied by contextual and educational programming such as workshops, walks, and public conversations for diverse audiences. A recent instantiation at UU is at the More Than Human Studies Lab’s Annual Global Classroom, convened by Dr Rick Dolphijn (UU); Dr Irena Chawrilska (University of Gdansk) and Dr Winnie Yee (University of Hong Kong), where Evelyn gives a workshop called “Once Upon a Time in the Pearl of the Orient”, and will co-author a performative essay for LIQUID LANDSCAPES: The More-Than-Human Lives of Deltas (Open Humanities Press).