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Platforming artists and art informed by East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) backgrounds since 1986

13/06/2026

Chris Zhongtian Yuan: 'Two Improvisations' is now open every Tuesday to Sunday until 13 September, 2026. Admission is free to all, with no advance booking required.

Born in Wuhan and based in London, Yuan is an artist and filmmaker who works across video, sound, performance, and sculpture. 'Two Improvisations' is their first UK institutional solo exhibition.

In the main gallery, ‘Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical’ (2026), commissioned by esea contemporary for the exhibition, is the second instalment of a planned film and performance trilogy examining the Yěrén (野人), a mysterious ape-like figure said to roam the mountains of Hubei province. In the Communal Project Space, a stage lined with handmade props brings the film's miniature world into tangible form.

Underpinned by punk impulses of rebellion and the handmade, and arising defiantly from a particular cultural moment, ‘Two Improvisations’ mobilises DIY as a method and a stance, generating visual and aural stimuli that resist disciplinary containment.

Find out more and plan your visit via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/dzdgcjsjkv

Chris Zhongtian Yuan: 'Two Improvisations' is generously supported by Arts Council England, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the British Council ‘Connect Through Culture’ Grant, and Manchester City Council.

Photography by Jules Lister

11/06/2026

💬Artist-Led Tour: 'Two Improvisations'
📅Saturday, 13 June, 2–3pm

Join artist Chris Zhongtian Yuan for a guided tour of 'Two Improvisations' — his first UK institutional solo show. This artist-led walkthrough offers an opportunity to encounter the exhibition through Yuan’s own reflections on improvisation, punk filmmaking, mythology, and DIY aesthetics.

Centred around the newly commissioned 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' (2026), the exhibition combines stop-motion animation, musical performance, handmade props, and sculptural installation to explore how personal histories, subcultures, and marginalised identities circulate within broader political and cultural narratives. Drawing on the figure of the Yěrén (野人) — an elusive ape-like being from Chinese folklore — Yuan approaches the ‘wild man’ as a shifting metaphor for artistic otherness, visibility, and resistance.

🔗Find out more and book your free ticket via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/sefotseihl

Image credit:
Chris Zhongtian Yuan, 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' (2026), 2-channel film. Commissioned by esea contemporary. Film still courtesy of the artist.

09/06/2026

⏰Last chance to book
Chris Zhongtian Yuan 'Two Improvisations' Exhibition Preview

There's still time left to reserve your place at our exhibition preview event this Friday, 12 June, at 6pm.

Working across video, sound, performance, and sculpture, Chris Zhongtian Yuan uses improvisation and storytelling to explore how personal histories, subcultures, and marginalised communities sit within broader political, cultural and institutional narratives.

The artist will be present to introduce 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' (2026), commissioned by esea contemporary for the exhibition. Comprising two films that combine stop-motion animation and musical performance, this new works forms the second instalment of a planned film and performance trilogy examining the Yěrén (野人), a mysterious ape-like figure rooted in Chinese history and folklore.

Taking place during esea contemporary's 40th anniversary year, the exhibition also coincides with the 40th anniversary of Manchester and Wuhan's twinning as sister cities — placing ‘Two Improvisations’ within a broader history of cross-cultural artistic dialogue and exchange.

🔗Tickets are free but capacity is limited. Find out more and book via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/llqmpzsfuk

Image credit:
1-5. Chris Zhongtian Yuan, 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' (2026) 2-channel film. Commissioned by esea contemporary. Film still courtesy of the artist.

06/06/2026

🔊Last chance to book: Hardcore Raver in Tears ft. Lu Yan
📅Saturday, 13 June, 7–10pm
📍SOUP, 31-33 Spear St, Manchester, M1 1DF

This UK debut performance by Wuhan-based experimental music band Hardcore Raver in Tears, led by Lu Yan, accompanies the opening of Chris Zhongtian Yuan: ‘Two Improvisations.’

Emerging from the earlier project AV Okubo, Hardcore Raver in Tears combines industrial noise, rave, and punk sensibilities through distorted textures, abrasive rhythms, and emotionally charged vocals.

Moving away from overt historical reference toward a more personal and future-oriented cultural critique, the project explores contemporary social conditions while retaining the raw immediacy of DIY music cultures and spaces of collective release.

Since reforming in 2019, Hardcore Raver in Tears has released a number of acclaimed works including Take Her to Wanda Plaza, Demobilization, Dongguan, and the pandemic-era EP WUHAN2020, which reflect experiences of social change, uncertainty, and human connection with urgency and empathy.

🔗 Book your ticket via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/xptnlunops

This event is generously supported by the British Council ‘Connect Through Culture’ Grant, and Manchester City Council.

04/06/2026

⏰Final tickets remaining: Yuen Fong Ling’s Talk
A Changing Appetite: A Reflection on ‘British-Chinese’ Art Making and Curating from the Late 1980s to the Early 2000s
📅Saturday, 6 June, 6:30-8pm

There's just time left to reserve your place at this event exploring a period of creativity, hybridity, and possibility centred around Manchester, when artists of ESEA heritage were building connections across a widely dispersed and often fragmented artistic community.

Ling will reflect on personal inspirations and motivations, the changing appetite for Chinese art, and more broadly on how these histories are being held today. His presentation is followed by a Q&A session, offering the audience the opportunity to engage with the artist and curator directly.

Join us as we consider how artists and curators might reappraise their work alongside peers and collaborators, examine how these experiences might help reframe art histories and reclaim representation for future generations.

🔗 Find out more and book your ticket via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/tjhldqdzfl

Image credit:
1-3. Yuen Fong Ling, “FLIP” (Workshop Collage) 2000, part of Year of the Artist 2000, with Wai Yin Youth Group.

02/06/2026

Meet the artist: Chris Zhongtian Yuan

Chris Zhongtian Yuan's first UK institutional solo exhibition, 'Two Improvisations,' opens at esea contemporary on Saturday, 13 June.

Yuan (b. 1988, Wuhan) is a London-based artist and filmmaker. Their practice centres on ‘punk filmmaking,’ which deploys techniques drawn from improvisational music and experimental animation. Moving fluidly between reality and myth, digital and analogue, Yuan's work examines the role of memory in familial, domestic and institutional spaces and relationships.

Yuan has presented work internationally, including at John Hansard Gallery; Studio Voltaire; Surplus Space, Wuhan; Current Plans, Hong Kong; Somerset House; Reading International; Macalline Art Center, Beijing; The Courtauld Institute of Art; Kunsthal Rotterdam; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Guangdong Times Museum; Whitechapel Gallery; OCAT Institute, Beijing; Power Station of Art; Videox Zurich; and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. They have also contributed to the Venice Architecture Biennale (Greek Pavilion) and the B3 Moving Image Biennale. Yuan holds an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association School of Architecture.

🔗 Find out more about Chris Zhongtian Yuan: 'Two Improvisations' via the link in bio.

The exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the British Council ‘Connect Through Culture’ Grant, and Manchester City Council.

Image credit: Portrait of Chris Zhongtian Yuan. Photograph by Adama Jalloh.

29/05/2026

‘40 Years 40 Voices’: Ying Kwok

Ying Kwok is a Hong Kong-based curator whose practice spans contemporary visual art, performance, film, photography and site-specific commissions. Working across artist-led initiatives, festivals, and international institutions, her curatorial work aims to bring together interdisciplinary approaches and cross-cultural dialogue. She is currently Senior Curator at Tai Kwun Contemporary.

Kwok was previously a curator at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art from 2006-2012. As an independent curator, she has led and contributed to major international projects including ‘Peer to Peer: UK/HK’ (2020), ‘Contagious Cities: Far Away, Too Close’ for Tai Kwun Contemporary and Wellcome Trust (2019), LOOK International Photography Festival, and ‘Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief’ (2017).

Kwok is a co-founder of Art Appraisal Club, a platform developed with local arts professionals to encourage critical discourse and exhibition review in Hong Kong. She was awarded the Asia Cultural Council Fellowship in 2014 and was an International Fellow of the Clore Leadership Programme in 2018-2019.

2026 marks esea contemporary’s 40th anniversary year. From our beginnings as a grassroots Chinese Visual Arts Festival to our role today within the UK and European arts landscape, our work has been shaped by listening, convening, and holding space for voices that might otherwise go unheard.

‘40 Years, 40 Voices’ continues this journey.

Shared throughout the year, these voices do not define a single story, but trace the many lived experiences, histories and diasporic imaginaries that shape who we are becoming.

Image credit:
1. Portrait of Ying Kwok. Image courtesy of artist.

2, 3, 5. Foreign Investment, Everything Must Go, 2004/2011, Mixed media installation with gold-toned objects.

4. Ying Kwok, First Step, exhibition view, Chinese Arts Centre, 2004.

6. From Ocean to Horizon, group exhibition view, Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), 2017. Courtesy of Constantin Brosteanu.

7. Angie Atmadjaja, Intrinsic, solo exhibition view, Chinese Arts Centre, 2011.

26/05/2026

💬 Yuen Fong Ling’s Talk
A Changing Appetite: A Reflection on ‘British-Chinese’ Art Making and Curating from the Late 1980s to the Early 2000s
📅 Saturday, 6 June, 6:30-8pm

Join us for this event with artist and curator Yuen Fong Ling, as he revisits the networks, collaborations, and critical friendships that developed through exhibitions, research projects, and strategic initiatives during the 1990s and early 2000s — exploring how artists at this time navigated the politics of race, gender, sexuality, and class while challenging perceptions of Chinese art and artists in the UK.

Taking in his early involvement with the Chinese Arts Centre, where he volunteered and later worked as Exhibition Curator, through the Woo Arts Traineeship in partnership with North West Arts Board and Cornerhouse, and his role as Curator and later Co-Director at Castlefield Gallery, Ling will reflect on his personal inspirations and motivations, the changing appetite for Chinese art, and more broadly on how these histories are being held today.

🔗 Find out more and book your ticket via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/uaowqtiufs

Image credit:
1-2. Yuen Fong Ling, “FLIP” (Workshop Collage) 2000, part of Year of the Artist 2000, with Wai Yin Youth Group.

21/05/2026

🎤New event: Hardcore Raver in Tears ft. Lu Yan — UK Debut Performance
🗓️Saturday, 13 June, 7–10pm
📍SOUP, 31-33 Spear St, Manchester, M1 1DF

esea contemporary is excited to present the UK debut of Wuhan-based experimental music band Hardcore Raver in Tears, as part of the preview weekend for Chris Zhongtian Yuan: ‘Two Improvisations’.

Hardcore Raver in Tears combines industrial noise, rave, and punk sensibilities through distorted textures, abrasive rhythms, and emotionally charged vocals.

Led by Lu Yan, the group performs four original songs in Yuan's 'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical,' written in conjunction with the artist for the film. Here, music becomes both a collaborative method and a way of thinking through migration, subculture, friendship, and improvisation.

🎟️Early bird tickets for this very special performance are on sale now — find out more via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/zmfmpevohd

This event is generously supported by the British Council ‘Connect Through Culture’ Grant.

Image credit:
Image courtesy of Lu Yan.

19/05/2026

📢Open for booking: Chris Zhongtian Yuan: 'Two Improvisations' Exhibition Preview
🗓️Friday, 12 June, 6–8pm
🎟️Limited capacity — reserve your free ticket to guarantee entry

Join us for the preview of the first UK institutional solo exhibition by Chris Zhongtian Yuan. Working across video, sound, performance, and sculpture, Yuan uses improvisation and storytelling to explore how personal histories, subcultures, and marginalised communities sit within broader political, cultural and institutional narratives.

'Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical' (2026), commissioned by esea contemporary for the exhibition, comprises two films that use stop-motion animation and musical form to examine the phenomenon of the Yěrén (野人), a mysterious ape-like figure said to roam the mountains of Hubei province.

Book your ticket now to be one of the first to see this new work, which will be introduced by the artist.

🔗 Find out more via the link below: https://f.mtr.cool/skinnnfbyf

The exhibition is generously supported by Arts Council England, Greater Manchester Combined Authority, the British Council ‘Connect Through Culture’ Grant, and Manchester City Council.

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13 Thomas Street
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Tuesday	10am - 5pm
Wednesday	10am - 5pm
Thursday	10am - 5pm
Friday	10am - 5pm
Saturday	10am - 5pm
Sunday	12pm - 5pm

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