Jessica Ré Phillips is a doctoral researcher at SOAS, University of London, in the Department of Politics and International Studies. Ré’s research asks what visual art can reveal about China-Kenya political relations, and what friendship between states means when it is understood, experienced, and contested from below. Centering African artists' and citizens' perspectives, she reads art as a form of political thought across several levels: the individuals who make and encounter it, the communities it speaks to, and the states whose friendship it interprets. Ré's research builds on her practice as an internationally recognized, multidisciplinary artist, with a record of collaborative work with national theaters and galleries across China and Africa. Ré served on the editorial board of Millennium: Journal of International Studies for volumes 51-54.

Keywords: China-Africa Relations, Aesthetic Politics, Political Economy, Identity and Representation, Participatory and Arts-based Methodologies