Art foundation forges new Sino-British relations

A new chapter in artistic relations between the United Kingdom and China has opened up after the recipient of the first Asymmetry Curatorial Writing Fellowship, offering global exchange opportunities in the world of art curation, was announced.

The six-month fellowship is offered by the London-based Asymmetry Art Foundation, founded by Chinese collector and patron Yan Du to integrate China's contemporary art scene into the wider international art scene, by providing opportunities for curators and academics.

The Foundation aims to set up several more fellowships and scholarships with artistic institutions in the UK, with details to be announced in the coming months, but the first such six-month opportunity has been given to Hang Li, a researcher and curator based in London and Beijing, who will start work at the Chisenhale Gallery in East London in early March.

The gallery, situated in an old brewery building not far from the Olympic Park area, was founded in 1983 and has developed a reputation as an incubator for many major names in the world of contemporary art.

In 1990, it hosted the debut solo show by Rachel Whiteread, the first woman to win the Turner Prize, and later this year it is scheduled to stage Shanghai-based artist Yu Ji's first UK solo exhibition, Wasted Mud.

Hang, who was born in 1990, is described by the foundation as someone whose artistic focus "is on the curatorial at the intersection of art and technology by drawing upon ideas including collective working, feminist epistemologies, and organizational approaches to social justice".

Currently a PhD researcher in the School of Arts and Humanities at London's Royal College of Art, she has previously curated for institutions including The Photographers' Gallery, Spazju Kreattiv in Malta and the Royal College of Art.

Having been selected from a shortlist of proposals by Asymmetry and the gallery's director Zoe Whitley, over the course of her six months there, Hang will be involved in devising the gallery's programming for the fall of 2021.

"Hang Li is an aspiring scholar and promising emerging curator to watch," said Asymmetry founder, Yan Du.

"Her research project for the Curatorial Writing Fellowship is practice-driven and explores web-based collaborative work between curators, artists and institutions, such as ourselves, while emphasizing the sense of community, empathy and care. These notions are now more relevant than ever."