Hanqing Zhao is a doctoral student in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and is pursuing a designated emphasis in Folklore.
Hanqing cares about the vast availability of meanings that rest in the indeterminacy of the human visual field, which encompasses ordinary, everyday life and everything we take for granted in the built environment. His doctoral research focuses on interpreting the “ill-mannered” behaviors and small social conflicts in contemporary Chinese urban public spaces to understand the concepts of and the relationship between the “self” and “publicness,” and argues how individual dwellers form such concepts simply through perceiving and behaving in the public space. He has been conducting ethnographic research primarily in Northeast China, formerly known as Manchuria, as an in-depth case study.
Before returning to UC Berkeley to pursue a theoretical track, Hanqing was trained as a landscape architect at the University of Manitoba (B. Env. D.) and then at UC Berkeley (M.L.A.), and interned in Japan, China, Canada, and the US during school. He continued his design practice in the Bay Area for three years after completing his master's program. Hanqing is also interested in various everyday objects, especially handheld ones, as well as the broad discipline of visual perception and aesthetics.
