THE ANU’s Australian Centre for China on the World is fast becoming the go-to spot for innovative exhibitions highlighting new worlds in art.

In the past week, I have been to not one, but two exhibitions at the centre, which differ dramatically in both style and purpose.

First up, shown in the centre’s auditorium foyer, is “How to quantify FEAR?” an exhibition of photographs which throw light on street protests during Myanmar’s revolution and military coup.

The curator, photographic artist, Mayco Naing, visiting the ANU’s 2023 Myanmar Update from France, where she now lives in exile, proved an eloquent advocate for the work of the artists on show and their ideals.

Apart from the large- scale photographic works in display, she has produced a trilingual (Burmese, French and English)  book of poems by dissident Burmese poets, some of whom are no longer alive.

Happy to report, the photographs on show in the foyer as you first enter the centre are all done by living artists – the curator herself, photographer Mauk Kham Wah and filmmaker “M”.

Mayco Naing was originally a conceptual art photographer, but spent 50 days on the barricades of Yangon shooting people’s portraits. Barricades became her special  art project and she has even built a barricade in the middle of a museum.

“Through the arts, I reach more people to tell a story,” she told me.

Then there are “before” and “after” photographs by Mauk Kham Wah. First, he was able to show “Gen Z” protestors in the streets of Yangon, unmasked and full of personality, but once in the jungle embedded with anti-coup fighters, he could not share their faces for fear of identification, so they remain anonymous.

The there is a 60-minute documentary screening by the video and film artist simply known as “M”, who started filming on the morning of the military coup and for over 177 days from various hiding places. He became anonymous because he wants to return to his native Myanmar.

“How to quantify FEAR?” auditorium foyer, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, Fellows Lane, ANU, until August 10. “177” by Filmmaker M will screen in the in the auditorium during business hours until August 10.

IN marked contrast is the refined ceramics exhibition by Taiwanese Australian artist, Ruth Ju-shih Li, in the main gallery of the centre.

Strongly, motivated by her Christian faith and Chinese spiritual ancestry, Li now divides her time between Australia, Taiwan and the Jingdezhen, the ceramics capital of China. She has exhibited at venues like the  Jingdezhen China Ceramics Museum, Tsing Hua University Gallery, Kyoto Ceramics Centre and National Taiwan University of the Arts.

Her works, exquisite floral explosions, (hence the title of her exhibition, “Florilegium”) are executed mostly in porcelain mixed with other media.

While there are individual works hung on the walls and a kind of play-table where you can handle the ceramics, the central work is a large installation created over three weeks at the Australia Centre on China in the World, “Still life from a distant memory – A Winter Study before Dawn.”

Not only are her works, which speak though flowers, exquisite in detail, but there is a poignant side to the main installation, as its “flowers” are executed in unfired clay, meaning that they will disintegrate over the course of the exhibition – much in the manner of a beautiful flower, one could say.

“Florilegium: Distant Memories,” by Ruth Ju-shih Li, Australia Centre on China in the World Building 188, until December 15. Ruth Ju-shih Li will conduct a Guided Tour from 2pm, July 29.