We constantly sense beauty and seek meaning.

Years ago, I was reading Victor Frankl's Men’s Searching for Meaning and one of the scenes stood out to me the most. A Jewish prisoner survivor recalled his days in a camp and said, "There was a window in my cell. From that window, I saw two trees. Sometimes birds came to rest there. Because of this window, I survived.”

What the Jews saw through the window was a precious aesthetic experience, albeit under difficult and extreme conditions.

I'm an Ikebana artist, meanwhile I am an aesthetics researcher at the Graduate School of Human Behavior in Social and Economic Change (GSBC) at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena in Germany. 

My research interests lie in aesthetic creativity in widely differing domains such as visual art, workplace and public space. I am particularly drawn by the association between aesthetic means and emotions, identity and meaning. Taking interdisciplinary approach to study this process, I offer perspectives on how aesthetics is appreciated, judged and communicated to individuals and groups and organizations.

My current research project explores the aesthetics and symbolism in banking architectures in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

To support or take part in my research work, please write to me yuli.liang(at)uni-jena.de