WHITE OCCUPATION OF A CHINESE ARTS CENTRE - A CALL TO ACTION

Comments

#1

I am an Asian artist who wants to see representation structurally not just tokenised artists! We deserve networks that foster discourse and community not white gate keeping.

Wai Kin Sin (London, 2021-05-18)

#3

Institutional racism should not be tolerated

Fiona Stephens (Glasgow, 2021-05-18)

#5

End tokenisation in British (and all) arts organisations

Claudia Contu (London, 2021-05-18)

#7

Racism is a disease and institutions like this perpetuate it. No Chinese representation in a Chinese Art Centre??! Disgusting colonial behaviour that must be stamped out.

Sonia Tidball (La Renaudiere, 2021-05-18)

#10

Institutional violence and abuse of power must stop.

Nicola Colclough (Manchester, 2021-05-18)

#13

I was offered an exhibition by CFCCA in mid 1998. It was cancelled three months before the opening in June 1999, after programming and promotional materials were already printed, while I was developing the work and trying to raise fund to travel from my home country.
I find this lack of appreciation of artists, staffs and failure of this institution unacceptable in this day and age.

Saubin Yap (Kuala Lumpur, 2021-05-18)

#20

We need arts spaces for East and Southeast Asian heritage artists run by East and Southeast Asian artists

Daniel York Loh (London, 2021-05-18)

#33

Challenge white supremacy and it’s racist manifestations

Shabina Aslam (Bradford, 2021-05-18)

#39

My experience:
I was forced to write a four and a half page letter to the Chair of the CFCCA Trustees, Peter Mearns back in 2017 having held a three week residency and an exhibition at CFCCA .
Titled, ‘Unpleasant treatment working with CFCCA’ it recounted my terrible treatment and requested an investigation, in particular, into practices of the then recently promoted curator, Marianna Tsionki.
I also wrote about Amelia Mitchell and Hannah Hartley. I had to clearly name the staff so as to protect frightened junior staff at CFCCA.
I wrote, if I had known what my reception would be prior I would not have elected to travel to Manchester from Melbourne where I had been working to give my time to my exhibition at CFCCA. I went on to say I was deeply disappointed that this is the state of the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Arts especially having worked in China for seven years prior myself. I offered to meet with the Board of Directors in the hope we could radically improve the culture of the organisation.
I was totally rebuffed and made out to be an unprofessional fool in the reply letter and I have since been professionally shunned in England directly because of my engagement with CFCCA.
Finally I was hugged and told by the Director that she knew full well that my requested investigation had been all lies.
I have never experienced anything like this in my career prior.

An excerpt of my letter:
‘This letter is to request an investigation into what has happened to myself and, as I now understand it, to other artists at the centre. My aim is that this behaviour be stopped and that artists working at CFCCA be supported. I find this behaviour worrying in an organisation established and publicly funded to outreach to the community and to support artists and especially those artists from abroad for whom English maybe a second language...’

16 February 2017

I am signing because I am appalled that this is still going on nearly five years later. So much damage has been done. It needs to stop and people involved held accountable.

Helen Couchman (London, 2021-05-18)

#41

Global majority voices to the front!

Linzy Na Nakorn (Bristol, 2021-05-18)

#42

I'm signing because I support the artists aims. I hope this situation will be dealt with by ACE very quickly.

Helen Morley (Newton Stewart, 2021-05-18)

#44

I fully support the artists' call.

Kai Syng Tan (Manchester, 2021-05-18)

#51

I'm signing because the report was extremely disturbing on so many levels, and because I fear that this is but one example amongst many of how structural racism plays out in cultural institutions in this country. For an institution focussed on Chinese contemporary art to be white-led in this way ought to be unthinkable, and it is clear that this has led to a culture of racism within this organisation.

Ruth Garde (London, 2021-05-18)

#59

I am signing this because of the institutional racism within the cultural sector that systematically excludes people of colour from boards and organisations where they rightfully belong in favour of maintaining hegemonies of cultural imperialism

Shaana Duggal-Toor (birmingham, 2021-05-18)

#63

White control of the CCCA without transparency or accountability is unacceptable. This situation needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

Su-Anne Yeo (Vancouver, 2021-05-18)

#64

In solidarity

Lucy Davis (Helsinki, 2021-05-18)

#76

Besides the situation in CFCCA, white curators/directors still remain important roles in a number of reputable art organisations in Asia.

Ngo Chun Tse (London, 2021-05-18)

#78

demanding fair treatment for ethnic minority artists; supporting equality, diversity and inclusion in the arts

Hongwei Bao (Nottingham, 2021-05-18)

#82

I’m signing because I’d like to see CFCCA become a place that not only presents a specific (white) interpretation of what Chinese art looks like, but a multitude of perspectives that correlate with the breadth of experiences that make up being ‘Chinese’.

Yet Chor Sunshine Wong (Sheffield, 2021-05-18)

#110

I believe in equality

Chris Wooi-Hoe (Singapore, 2021-05-18)

#115

Down with the white colonialisation...

Jay Koh DFA (Seri Kembagan, 2021-05-19)

#120

I am a settler Australian curator and artist who worked at GoMA on the Asia Pacific Triennial alongside Aboriginal and Asia Pacific senior staff and a vast network of advisors in the region from 2004-2009. For the past ten years I have worked in the Netherlands, Germany and the UK as an artist, critic, educator and scholar addressing regional art and political histories. Not in my entire 20 years of professionalization have I heard of an all white curated institution dedicated to Chinese Art. This is a legacy of a long gone previous era of imperial Britain (which I am highly family with as institutional history that continues to affect and have mediocrity impacts on the Australian art scene) and I can't imagine how your projects could be relevant to sophisticated conversations about Chinese Art History in the contemporary moment, let alone how it could not be institutionally racist. I implore you to consider the urgency and complexity of the artist groups positions on and begin to unravel this inappropriate version of institutional capture. What is a Chinese Art Centre for? The answer is not at all simple but I am unsure if you are asking it.

Rachel O'Reilly (Brisbane, 2021-05-19)

#125

Colonialism need to be removed and ownership and lead need to come from the persons it proclaims to support or enable or champion

jennifer Booth (Sheffield, 2021-05-19)

#131

The ‘White Occupation of a Chinese Arts Centre’ report is damning, and I believe reveals the structure and working practices of the CFCCA to be unsustainable and ineffective at promoting Chinese art, culture and history. The demands that the artists lay out in their report must be met.

Jordan Linton (Salford, 2021-05-19)

#138

Alarm bells have been ringing about this place for quite some time. It's not right to be all white running a Chinese contemporary art gallery.

Sophie Bartlett (Manchester, 2021-05-19)

#139

There is a total loss of confidence in this institution by the community of artists it exists to showcase and represent. It should be at the forefront of debate in its field yet has failed to engage either the local or international arts community and needs radical restructuring.

Melanie Jackson (London, 2021-05-19)

#156

Because the CFCCA is a bullying and racist organisation. They say they can't find qualified Chinese people (or BME people to work at their organisation), which is a lie. If you're going to pay people peanuts (which they do) then people won't want to work there. They bullied their last curator (the only person of Chinese decent in the creative team) out of a job

Stacey W (Hong kong, 2021-05-19)

#165

I'm signing because of the importance of a Chinese arts organisation being driven by a Chinese team and because racism has no place in the arts.

Sabrina Fuller (Manchester, 2021-05-19)

#166

In solidarity. Tokenism needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency also in the wider practice of instituting.

Dot Jia (London, 2021-05-19)

#173

This is an opportunity for positive change, to re-address history, set a clear example for other organisations to learn and move forward from and most importantly to properly support and champion artists who have been systemically overlooked and abused. Because it is the right thing to do.

Gemma Thorpe (Sheffield, 2021-05-19)

#174

This is important, institutional racism needs to be investigated, dismantled and funding stopped. This positive change is urgently needed.

Marysa Dowling (London, 2021-05-19)

#175

I am committed to anti- racism activism.

Jean Campbell (LONDON, 2021-05-19)

#177

This is important and urgent

Dora Lam (London, 2021-05-19)

#183

White professionals shouldn’t profit of Asian art and artists like this

June B (London, 2021-05-19)

#185

The events reported by the seven artists of Chinese heritage are appalling, and speak to a failure to practice the kinds of principles that leaders in the arts sector all outwardly espouse, as well as an unwillingness to engage in the critical issues that have been fundamental to Asian art historical practice for decades. Anti-racism should be seen as a matter of core professional competency, not the set dressing for inclusion theatre.

Zoyander Street (Rotherham, 2021-05-19)

#190

I have encountered similar institutional failures in my work history and believe there is systemic weakness, racism and colonialism in the way many non-profit and publicliy-funded organisations are governed.

Ben Mills (Glastonbury, 2021-05-19)

#191

This behaviour is disgusting, to take advantage of Chinese people, culture and art for their own gain. This is racism clear as day.

Lucy Pankhurst-Smith (Sheffield, 2021-05-19)

#197

END WHITE SUPREMACY.

Richard Chung (Nottingham, 2021-05-19)



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