The phrase "an instance of what" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when you want to refer to a specific example or occurrence of something that has been previously mentioned or is being discussed.
Example: "This is an instance of what we discussed in our last meeting regarding project delays."
Alternatives: "a case of what" or "an example of what".
The torture was an instance of what Levi had called "useless violence".
The fathering of many children by a single man is an instance of what biologists call male intrasexual selection.
But these reduce time so infinitesimally that the effect would be hidden in the quantum uncertainty of measurement – an instance of what physicists call cosmic censorship.
This is an instance of what we might call the "X consecutive teachers" argument (sometimes it's three, sometimes four or five).
Rather, the core was an instance of what Thomas Kuhn, in his famous essay "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," called "normal science" — although it would perhaps be unfair to label anything associated with Camp Century as normal.
But in part, I think this is an instance of what Stephen Greenblatt, in his book "Marvellous Possessions", terms "mimetic blockage".The book is about the crisis of values and ideologies that accompanied the European encounter with the New World.
The result resembles a low-key spontaneous Happening, or perhaps an early instance of what is sometimes called relational aesthetics or service art as later practiced by artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija and Pierre Huyghe.
But the case of handicaps is just an extreme instance of what is always present, namely each individual has a set of traits and natural powers bestowed by genetic inheritance and early socialization, and these differ greatly across persons and greatly affect people's access to valuable ways to live.
"Wukan is an attractive instance of what's possible.
These albums, which pushed the vogue for eclecticism to the point of incoherence, were an early instance of what the classical violinist Joshua Bell calls "Edgar-music".
Perhaps that was an early instance of what we would now call kicking the debt problem onto the next generation.
