Fire on the Himalayas: Communicating Emotions in Public Participation

In September 2025, the outdoor brand Arc’teryx partnered with the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang to stage a large-scale fireworks display titled ‘Rising Dragon’ on the Tibetan Plateau. This event quickly triggered public criticism, encompassing not only concerns about pollution but also cultural, religious, and nationalist responses. This talk makes three points. First, the interpretive flexibility of land art generates diverse public perceptions, placing it in an uneasy relationship with environmental protection. Second, public emotions are a necessary yet limited form of participation, and they are difficult for authorities to interpret and translate into viable public knowledge. Third, public emotions should be used in ways that align with particular environmental regimes, with differentiated approaches to the cultural significance of natural environments.

Xiaohan (Sharon) Zhang is a DPhil in Law candidate at Balliol College, under the supervision of Professor Liz Fisher. Her research interests mainly include constitutional and administrative law, environmental law, with a particular focus on how different forms of knowledge intersect and shape modern public law. In her DPhil project, she explores different understandings of regulatory objectivity and how they are related to the Rule of Law. Her research is generously sponsored by the Rhodes Scholarship.

Yang Qiu is a DPhil candidate in Law at Wolfson College, University of Oxford. His doctoral research, supervised by Professor Ngoc Son Bui, focuses on comparative constitutional history and explores the relationship between collective memory and constitutions.