Throughout history, the meeting of images and architecture has generated spaces of imagination, devotion, and meaning. From murals and sculpture ensembles in Buddhist cave temples to digital projections and immersive installations, images and architecture have long collaborated in the making of worlds. Yet the relationship between images and architecture in artistic worldmaking is anything but monolithic. Architecture does not merely contain or frame images, but situates and conditions their visual expressions and interpretations. Conversely, images transform the built environments that hold them, reconfiguring space into realms of vision, ritual, and belief. Harvard Visual China’s 2026 Graduate Symposium presents two panels on how images and architecture in Chinese and East Asian art at large construct, sustain, and reimagine worlds.

This event is generously sponsored by the Department of History of Art & Architecture and the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Innovation Fund, Harvard FAS CAMLab, and the Yin-Cheng Distinguished Lecture Series.