Zhuolin Li

Zhuolin Li is a PhD researcher in the School of Heritage and Culture at the University of Leicester, where he holds a Future 100 Scholarship at the Institute for Digital Culture. His doctoral research examines digital sound archives and the practices that sustain them, taking the British Library-led Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH) programme as its case study. Drawing on digital materiality, embodied experience, infrastructure studies and postphenomenology, he explores the material reality of digital sound and the often invisible labour behind it.

Zhuolin is also a Research Associate on the Museum Data Service, a joint initiative of Art UK, Collections Trust and the University of Leicester. He holds an MSc in Museum Studies with Distinction from the University of Leicester (2022) and a BSc in Physics from Nanjing University (2020), and has interned at the Shanghai Museum, Nanjing Museum and the Natural History Museum, London.

Outside research, he is an amateur cellist and writes for Music Weekly (音乐周报).

Research interests: sound archives and sound studies; museum studies; digitization and preservation; digital materiality; postphenomenology.

My doctoral research examines the material reality of the digital sound archive and the embodied labour that brings it into being and sustains it. Although digital sound archive is often imagined as weightless and immaterial, its creation and preservation depend on physical infrastructures, specialist tools and the skilled, sensory, embodied work of archivists and technicians. My thesis makes this hidden labour visible.

My primary case study is Unlocking Our Sound Heritage (UOSH), the largest coordinated national sound-preservation initiative of its kind in the UK, led by the British Library through a network of ten regional and national archival partners. Drawing on multi-sited fieldwork conducted across five (the British Library, the Bristol Archives, the London Archives, The Keep in Brighton, and the East Midlands Oral History Archive at the University of Leicester) of the network’s ten hubs, I explore how digitization work is actually done: at the listening desk, through playback machines and software, and within the environments where the digital preservation of archival sound is handled.

Theoretically, the project brings together digital materiality and embodied phenomenology, using postphenomenology (Ihde, Verbeek) and Stiegler's concept of tertiary retention to trace how tools, media and environment mediate the relationship between archive and archivist (& sound engineer).

It answers two questions: how digital sound archives are material, and how the work is embodied. And it argues that the labour is invisible not because it is hidden, but because good work disappears into what it makes possible.

Zhuolin Li (2026). ‘Revisiting Sound Heritage at Sites: Soundscape, Embodiment and the Corporeality of Listening’, in Proceedings of the Heritages 2025 'Critical Questions – Contemporary Practice', 25-27 June 2025, London, United Kingdom. AMPS Proceedings Series 44.3, pp. 183-190.

Zhuolin Li (2026). ‘Showcasing Sound from the Past: Approaching the Intangible through the Tangible’, in Proceedings of the ICAMT 51th Annual Conference, 11-17 November 2025, Dubai, UAE. Conference Proceedings. 

'Inclusive Research', Summer Academy, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy, July 2026

‘Performative Research’ Summer Academy, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy, July 2025

‘Art Thinking’ Summer Academy, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy, July 2024

‘Research [in] Action’ Summer Academy, Monash University Prato Centre, Italy, July 2023.

‘The Interpretation of Sound Culture in the Science Museum’ invited presentation to the London Culture Salon, London, 10 June 2023 (INVITED).

2022: Future 100 PhD Studentship: Full Scholarship

Zhuolin Li. ‘Materiality and embodiment: a phenomenological reappraisal of digital sound archiving’ presented to the British and Irish Sound Archives (BISA) 20th anniversary conference at M Shed, Bristol, UK, 14-15 May, 2026.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Ambient, Artefact, Artwork: Re-framing the Hybrid Roles of Sound in Being Anton’ presented to the EUROMUSE International Scientific Conference on ‘Museums, Music and Audiences: Towards Inclusive and Data‑Informed Cultural Practice’, Belgrade, Serbia, 25-26 April 2026.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Showcasing Sound from the Past: Approaching the Intangible through the Tangible’ presented to the ICAMT 2025 Annual Conference within the 27th General Conference of ICOM, Dubai, UAE, 11-17 November 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Embodiment and Materiality: A Phenomenological Approach to Digital Sound Archiving’ presented to International Conference on Sound in Museums 2025 at the National Museum of Music, Mafra, Portugal, 17-19 October 2025.

Zhuolin Li & Wenyan Wang. ‘Reimagining Sound Archives: Design for Healing and Inclusivity’ presented online to the Eighteenth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum: ‘Galleries, Libraries, Archives & Museums: Engines of Innovation and Social Participation’, 15-17 September 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Materiality and Embodiment: A Phenomenological Approach to Digital Sound Archiving’ presented to the International Association of Music Libraries, Archives and Documentation Centers (IAML) 2025 Congress, Salzburg, Austria, 6-11 July 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Revisiting Sound Heritage at Sites: Soundscape, Embodiment and the Corporeality of Listening’ presented to the Architecture Media Politics Society (AMPS) London Heritage(s) Conference 2025 on ‘Critical Questions – Contemporary Practice’ at the University of Greenwich, 25-27 June, 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘The Embodied Materiality of Digital Sound Archives: Phenomenological Encounters and Archival Practices’ presented to the International Society for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF) 2025 Congress on ‘Unwriting’ at the University of Aberdeen, 3-6 June 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Sustainable Digital Archives: Embodiment, Labour, and the Material Challenges of Sound Heritage’ presented to the ESRC Digital Good Network symposium on ‘Towards Sustainable Digital Futures’ at University of Sheffield, 14-15 May 2025.

Zhuolin Li.‘The Hidden Embodied Experience: A Phenomenological Approach to the Digital Sound Archives’ presented to XXI International Academic Forum on Design and Creation and the XI International Conference on Media Art Histories, Science and Technology, Manizales, Colombia, 05-09 May 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Embodied Archives: Digital Sound Collections as Sites of Sensory Engagement and Healing’ presented to the ICOM UK Student and Emerging Professionals Conference 2025, 09 April 2025.

Zhuolin Li. ‘Digitization and Interpretation of Sensory Heritage’ presented to the symposium on ‘Archaeological Museums: Narrative and Display’ at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 28 November 2024 (INVITED).

Zhuolin Li & Wenyan Wang. ‘Digital Sound Archives of Intangible Cultural Heritage: A Strategy for Interactivity and Knowledge Sharing’ presented to the Archives of Latvian Folklore Conference on ‘Archives of Traditional Culture: 100+10’ at the National Library of Latvia, Riga, 29-31 October 2024.

Zhuolin Li & Wenyan Wang. ‘Unlocking Digital Archives: Knowledge Sharing and Participation through Digital Humanities’ presented to the international symposium on ‘Transformation in Museums through Digital Initiatives’ at the University Museum and Art Gallery (UMAG), University of Hong Kong, 12-13 January 2024.

Zhuolin Li. ‘The Role of Museums in Preserving Soundscapes as Cultural Heritage’ presented to the symposium on ‘Museums in the Coming Decade: Heritage and Display’ at the School of Archaeology and Museology, Peking University, 09-10 November 2023.

PhD Museum Studies, School of Heritage and Culture, University of Leicester (September 2026)

MSc (with Distinction) Museum Studies, School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester (October 2022)

BSc Physics, School of Physics, Nanjing University (July 2020)