京都市立芸術大学ギャラリー@KCUA

The KCUA Art Gallery is pleased to present the following lecture:
Zhu Xiaowen: Centering the Margins: Rethinking Contemporary Art and the ESEA Experience

What does it mean to imagine East and Southeast Asia beyond fixed categories and inherited narratives? In this talk, Xiaowen Zhu, Director of esea contemporary — the UK’s only non-profit art centre dedicated to artists and practices informed by East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cultural backgrounds — reflects on the organisation’s recent transformation under her leadership and its commitment to rethinking how ESEA cultural experiences are represented in contemporary art.
As part of this process, esea contemporary underwent an institutional rebranding shaped by community engagement and research. This rethinking of identity was not only visual but conceptual, aiming to design a more inclusive, participatory framework that aligns with the organisation’s new vision. Taking Manchester as a starting point—a city shaped by migration, labour, and anti-colonial struggle—the talk considers how diasporic practices navigate the legacies of empire and the pressures of technofeudalism, while opening spaces of hybridity, translation, and renewal.
It asks how institutions can work more effectively and strategically with artists and communities to grow differently — renewing not through extraction, but through reciprocity and care. In this landscape, the voices of the next generation are not only vital but transformative, offering blueprints for how art, heritage, and community might evolve in ways that are more just, more imaginative, and more attuned to the futures we have yet to build.

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Zhu Xiaowen
Zhu Xiaowen is an author, curator, lecturer, and the Director of esea contemporary, 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. She is a member of the British Council’s Arts and Creative Economy Advisory Group.

Since assuming leadership, Zhu has led esea contemporary through a pivotal transformation, reshaping its identity with a broader, more inclusive vision centred on community engagement and cross-cultural dialogue. Under her direction, the organisation has developed a dynamic and multifaceted programme encompassing exhibitions, residencies, performances, talks, workshops, digital commissions, and long-term community initiatives. Headquartered in Manchester, esea contemporary now operates with an increasingly international perspective, expanding its reach through meaningful collaborations and project-based support from institutions including Liverpool Biennial, ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Fondazione Torino Musei, the Bagri Foundation, Henry Moore Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation, and The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global, to name just a few. Academic partnerships include the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, and the University of Salford. Through this sustained and ambitious approach, Zhu has re-positioned esea contemporary as a vital platform for art practices informed by East and Southeast Asian perspectives, and a leading voice in contemporary cultural discourse both in the UK and globally.