Docks and Seamen: Roleplay Game Workshop with Asia-Art-Activism

esea contemporary

Play for stakes in histories, spaces and practices; restarts, reshuffles, chance and choices

Extending discourses from Asia-Art-Activism’s first publication ‘Experiments in Care and Collective Disobedience’, writer Yin Lo, and artist Yarli Allison will be facilitating a roleplay board game workshop “Docks and Seamen” at esea contemporary, joining their research into the Chinese seafaring communities in the UK in the North West. T﻿he game reconfigures the board game 'Snakes &amp; Ladders' to offer multiple journeys shaped by choices and chances. The roleplay game aims to open up conversations that thread older Sinophone diasporic histories with contemporary questions of Chineseness, migration and community, along with struggles of survival and resilience in the face of racism and precarity. During the game, we explore what they will encounter, and how their life experience unfolds on shore or at sea. The dices in your hands will carry their fate.

BiographiesAsia-Art-ActivismAsia-Art-Activism is an interdisciplinary, intergenerational network of artists, curators, and academics investigating concepts relating to ‘Asia’, ‘art’, and ‘activism’ in the UK and internationally. Expanding a conversation around ‘Asia’ as a contested paradigm and the lived transnational narratives of its diasporas, migrant, and resident communities, the network highlights lesser-known accounts of Asian artists and activists in the UK, and questions ESEA invisibility within institutional narratives of British art and politics. Through its multifaceted practice of exhibitions, public programming, social gatherings, and publications, Asia-Art-Activism examines discursive conditions for ESEA artists and activists within a negotiation of decoloniality and solidarity with other protagonists of colour, and aims to develop greater alliances with other artistic and civic movements. It is motivated by the belief that an intersectional and inclusive approach resists reductive identity politics, and that spending time together is a political act of resilience and joy and an opportunity to share different perspectives and methodologies.Yarli Allison (b. Ottawa, Canada with British colonial Hong Kong heritage) (she/they) are currently exploring subjects on digital humanity, belonging and coping mechanisms with a queering fictitious approach. Yarli graduated with a first class honors MFA in Sculpture from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (2017), having received the entry award of the year’s Yitzhak Danziger scholarship.Recent (2021-22) solo and group exhibition partners include V&A Museum (London), Tai Kwun Contemporary (Hong Kong), Barbican Centre (London), LINZ FMR (Austria), FACT (Liverpool) and Institute of Contemporary Arts: ICA (London). Recent grants include Hong Kong’s Arts Council Project Grant (2019) and Arts Council England’s National Lottery Project Grant (2022).Yin Lo Born and raised in Hong Kong. Yin is a writer, lives and works in London. After finishing her master’s degree in Gender Studies at University College London, she then has been putting her studies into practice by writing film reviews and short stories.Her works address queer sexualities, desire, migration as well as diaspora in the modern times. Her first book Yung Yung - a novella published in Feb 2019, Hong Kong, told a story of a French Vietnamese-Chinese girl and her love affairs. The identity and sexual struggles of second generation immigrants unfolds.Currently, Yin focuses on diasporic trauma, in-betweenness, belonging, non-relationship and loneliness. She corporates these themes into her second book Grafting - a 110,000-word novel that depicts the love life of a new immigrant from Hong Kong as an analogy to the integrating process of moving from one’s hometown to another city. Forthcoming in 2023.

esea contemporaryesea contemporary 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 – previously named Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA) – 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.

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