Lydia is a PhD Candidate in Modern and Contemporary Asian Art at The Courtauld Institute of Art, supervised by Wenny Teo. She received her MA in Medieval Art from the Courtauld in 2013 under John Lowden. Her research centers on Cai’s dual practice of destruction and preservation within his living archive and how the archive as a machine of memory intersects with discourses of trauma, geopolitical events and artistic agency.