esea contemporary relaunches with inaugural exhibition Practise Till We Meet

esea contemporary is the UK’s only non-profit art centre dedicated to presenting and platforming artists and art practices with East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cultural backgrounds. Xiaowen Zhu, appointed in June 2022, is leading the transformation and re-imagining of esea contemporary with its new name and identity.

The reopening exhibition Practise Till We Meet, which features five artists and two collectives, is guest curated by Hanlu Zhang, an independent curator, writer, and editor interested in art as social practice, in collaboration with the curatorial team at esea contemporary.

New, commissioned and existing works will be shown by: Asia-Art-Activism, Asian Feminist Studio for Art and Research, Audrey Albert, Isaac Chong Wai, Koki Tanaka, Liu Weiwei, and Mimian Hsu.

Practise Till We Meet delves at diasporic experiences, migration, and the challenges and activities required to build a just existence in a new place. Personal and political, tragic and hilarious, it examines how individual and group perspectives become entangled with global upheavals spanning territory and generations. As exercises in connecting and reconnecting, the participating artists employ methodologies such as community participation, performance, interactivity, and social experimentation into their works.

Moving image, installations, wall works, movies, paintings, and a newly commissioned sculpture are among the works on display. The artists and collectives will hold events at the new Communal Project Space at esea Contemporary, creating displays that will grow and change throughout the exhibition.

esea contemporary reopens to the public on Saturday, February 18, 2023. For more details, visit eseacontemporary.org.