Chinese Arts Centre

The Chinese Arts Centre is the UK agency for Chinese Arts, Culture and Creativity based in Manchester, England.

Chinese Arts Centre is the international development agency for contemporary Chinese artists. Based in Manchester in the northwest of England, Chinese Arts Centre works to support and promote artists of Chinese descent from around the world. The centre has a changing main exhibition programme, residency scheme and smaller exhibition space for emerging artists. Chinese Arts Centre also works with other organisations to provide a platform for contemporary Chinese artists and has published widely on Chinese arts and artists including British Chinese art, Chinese live art and Hong Kong art.

Chinese Arts Centre was established in 1986 by a group of British Chinese artists based in Manchester. The artists were frustrated that their work was not been seeing in mainstream venues, and was not included in the Black Arts Movement of the time. Based in Chinatown, the Centre was financially supported by Manchester City Council and Arts Council England. Comprising a gallery, education room and teahouse, it provided a space to show the work of British Chinese artists and the local Chinese community.

The Hong Kong handover in 1997 was an important time in the development of Chinese Arts Centre. There was much focus on Chinese culture in the British media and many arts organisations programmed Chinese related events. This dramatic increase in mainstream recognition of all things Chinese encouraged the centre to change direction and, rather than just exhibiting work, proactively support the careers of artists of Chinese descent. In addition, 1997 marked the year that the organisation extended its remit to become a national charity and started to work internationally, rather than just with British Chinese artists.

In 1999 Chinese Arts Centre produced Representing the People - its first major touring exhibition. Touring to four key national venues and seen by 250,000 people, Representing the People was the first independent exhibition to show artists from Mainland China in the UK. Aside from the quality of the art, the exhibition was successful because it showed an honest and realistic face of life in China and featured artists such as Liu Xiao Dong who has since gone on to international success.

In 2003 Chinese Arts Centre opened their new purpose built centre following a £2.5 million Lottery grant to build a flagship centre for contemporary Chinese art. Designed by OMI Architects, the centre won a RIBA prize for architecture and features a gallery, tea house, shop, function room, offices, resource area and artist residency studio and living area. Chinese Arts Centre set up a residency scheme called Breathe offering artists of Chinese descent up to three month live/work residencies at the centre. Former Breathe resident artists include Gordon Cheung who has gone on to show widely internationally and had a solo exhibition at the centre early 2008.

In 2006 and 2007, Chinese Arts Centre organised VITAL - two international Chinese live art festivals providing a platform for performance and discussion of this hybrid contemporary art form.

In 2008 the centre received funding from the EU to create a touring exhibition with partner organisations in China and France to forge cultural links between Europe and China. The exhibition will take place in 2010.

In 2010, Chinese Arts Centre organised a Liberation Exhibition - an exhibition growing out of an ongoing discussion with Carol Yinghua Lu and Liu Ding following the blocked use of a selection of social networking and self-publishing websites such as Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube in China. This exhibition takes the form of a visual art exhibition as well as a series of events, a debate, and a blog discussion among the curators of the exhibition and invited guests. Speakers at the Chinese Arts Centre discussed a range of perspectives on the online media and the power of social networking sites. Guest speakers include exhibiting artist Brendan Fan, FaceRook artist Candy Chen Shuhui, Laurence Kaye from Pirate Party UK, Matthew Trump from the Northern Cybercrime Forensics Group, and Tom Kinniburgh, Associate Producer of the Application Company Chillingo Limited. It proposes a close look into the openness and potential of the Internet world as well as its susceptibility to power and political manipulation and ideological controls. The event is sponsored kindly by City Inn Manchester, and supported by Arts Council England and AGMA, Association of Greater Manchester Authorities.