Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice ‘From Island to Mountain Town’ (Zoom)

esea contemporary

Join us for an online panel discussion on art practice beyond China's cultural centres, from Hainan to Zhejiang, moderated by Binghuang Xu.

Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice

'Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice', a talk and editorial series by esea contemporary Director Xiaowen Zhu, explores how art is shaped beyond dominant centres — through place, labour, migration and community across East and Southeast Asia.

esea contemporary is pleased to present ‘From Island to Mountain Town’, an online panel discussion moderated by curator and writer Binghuang Xu, and the first instalment of esea contemporary's ‘Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice’ talk series. Bringing together practitioners from four independent art organisations across China, the conversation explores how contemporary art is shaped by place, and how artistic practice emerges in regions beyond established cultural centres.The discussion considers what it means to work where cultural infrastructure, education, social support, and public resources remain limited, and how these conditions continually reshape artistic approaches. Rather than treating such contexts as peripheral, the speakers reflect on how art becomes a way of making space, building relationships, and responding to local realities. Moving from Hainan Island to the Pearl River Delta, from Southwest Guizhou to a mountainous county town in Zhejiang, Binghuang Xu brings together Haoduo Tang from Kindergarten Without Walls, Qiwo He from Ergao Dance Production Group, Ran Zhou and Yunshan Jiang from Baopu·FELT, and Dingyu Hu from the Art Museum of Pond Loach.Each contributor will introduce the context and methods that define their organisation's practice: Kindergarten Without Walls, a community initiative that grew from a grocery shop through the repeated arrival of local children; Ergao Dance Production Group, whose work centres on movement, village life, and collective participation; Baopu·FELT, which develops long-term artistic research through fieldwork, language, and local knowledge in a ethnic minority populated region; and Art Museum of Pond Loach, a county museum building meaningful relationships with local communities through exhibitions, education, and public programmes.This online event is free but registration is required.This talk will be streamed on Zoom and all ticketholders will receive a link to join in advance of the event. It will also be recorded for those not able to join live. About ‘Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice’‘Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice’ is a talk and editorial series initiated by esea contemporary Director Xiaowen Zhu, exploring how contemporary art is shaped beyond dominant cultural centres. Bringing together artists, curators, writers, and researchers working across East and Southeast Asia, the series foregrounds practices rooted in specific places, where artistic work develops through everyday life, local knowledge, and long-term engagement with communities.Moving across urban villages, county towns, coastal regions, and regional networks, the series examines how artistic practice responds to labour, migration, ecology, and social change. Rather than positioning these places as peripheral to cultural production, Off Centre understands them as sites where cultural life is actively produced, negotiated, and sustained.Together, the talks and accompanying essays explore how artistic practice is shaped by lived conditions rather than institutional proximity. They trace connections across diverse contexts through shared questions of care, labour, knowledge, and place, asking how art is made, shared, and sustained within these environments, and how these places, in turn, generate their own forms of cultural life. About Binghuang XuBinghuang Xu is a curator, writer, and researcher based in Guangzhou, China, where she co-runs Making Space. Her practice focuses on social practice, ecological art, diasporic, and alternative education. Through fieldwork, writing, exhibitions, workshops, and long-term collaborations, she explores how artistic practice can respond to historical rupture and rebuild relations between people, places, and forms of knowledge.She was a panelist for Environmental Justice in China (Brown University, USA, 2023), a speaker for Overlooked Cities in Asia (Bandung, Indonesia, 2023), and Panel 21_Intermission: Curatorial Studies/Education? (China Academy of Art, China, 2025). She is a Salzburg Global Fellow and was the recipient of the Connections Through Culture Grant from the British Council (UK, 2024), and of the Fellows Award - Cultural &amp; Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis from the Prince Claus Fund (Netherlands, 2025).

<a href="https://www.eseacontemporary.org/" title="https://www.eseacontemporary.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">About esea contemporary</a><a href="https://www.eseacontemporary.org/" title="https://www.eseacontemporary.org/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">esea contemporary</a> is the UK’s only non-profit art centre specialising in presenting and platforming artists and art practices that identify with and are informed by East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cultural backgrounds.esea contemporary is situated in an award-winning building in the heart of Manchester, home to one of the largest East Asian populations in the UK. Since its inauguration as a community-oriented visual arts festival in 1986, esea contemporary has continuously evolved to establish itself as a dynamic and engaging space for cross-cultural exchanges in the British art scene, as well as in a global context.esea contemporary aims to increase the visibility of contemporary art practices from the East and Southeast Asian communities and their diasporas. It is a site for forward-thinking art programmes that beyond exhibitions also include commissions, research, residencies, publishing, and a wide range of vibrant public events. esea contemporary values creativity, compassion, interconnectedness, and collectivity in implementing its mission.Learn more at: www.eseacontemporary.orgPhoto by Joe Smith.

Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice ‘From Island to Mountain Town’ (Zoom)

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Off Centre: Elsewhere in Practice ‘From Island to Mountain Town’ (Zoom)

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