About

As a child, my Chinese American identity meant little more to me than annual subway rides to Canal Street for the Lunar New Year Parade and owning a silky pink dress which I would later come to know as a cheongsam. Fast forward to high school, and, while I became acutely aware that my Chinese heritage shaped others' perception of me and, consequently, where I fit in my school environment, I still did not know where my ancestors had fit in to history. My art classes rarely introduced me to Asian or Asian American artists, my English curriculum was devoid of Asian writers, and my history textbooks never ventured beyond the Western Hemisphere for more than a chapter or two.

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In an effort to combat the issue of underrepresentation, specifically in my Art History curriculum, I traveled to Zhengzhou, Bali, Chiang Mai, and Beijing to visit, photograph, and research prominent temples in each city. I chose to focus primarily on religious architecture–with the exception of the Forbidden City–because religion has been one of the most universal sources of inspiration for artists throughout history. This website is a compilation of my findings, and I intend for it to make a portion of Asian Art History more accessible to the future students of Riverdale Country School and broaden their grasp of the subject on a global scale.

 

        Zoe Storz 

Riverdale Country School '18                                

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