Professional Background
Cheuk Him Ryan Sun received a PhD in history from the University of British Columbia in 2026. His dissertation, “Shelters Interrupted: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Jewish Refugees (1938-1941),” expands the geography of Jewish exile outside Europe and beyond Shanghai. By tracing the movements of German Jewish refugees, his research reveals how colonialism shaped the possibilities, limits, and experiences of refuge in the British colonies of Hong Kong and Singapore.
Dr. Sun has also authored articles exploring the material culture and visual legacies of Jewish refugees in Asia. His article, “Between Viennese Childhood and Shanghai Survival: Gerda Gottfried’s Poesiealbum as a Palimpsestic Object,” (Journal of Holocaust Research 39, no. 1, 2025) traced the “life” of a notebook across time and space. His most recent article, “Feline Exile: Vernacular Photography and Shanghai Jewish Refugees’ Photograph Albums,” (Patterns of Prejudice 60, no. 1, 2026) examines the intersections between photography, pets, and family while in a state of exile.
Fellowship Research
As a Broadening Academia Initiative Hybrid Fellow, Dr. Sun will conduct research for his project titled “Snapshot Displacement: Jewish Refugee Photography and Memories of Exile.” He will research the photograph albums of Jewish refugees who found refuge in India, the Philippines, and Shanghai. This project seeks to understand why there were so many portraits of smiling individuals and families, and snapshots of home interiors, bustling streetscapes, and nature alongside images of non-Europeans in various stages of visual vulnerability. Furthermore, the project will explore what this can tell us about the underlying anxieties of the displacement Jewish refugees experienced that shaped the ways they recorded, obscured, and remembered their exile in colonial shelters. In particular, Dr. Sun will draw on the Museum’s film and photograph collections related to Jewish refugees who escaped to the colonized spaces of Asia.
Residency Period: November 1, 2026 - April 30, 2027