THE YEAR OF THE RAT

See our website for the Chinese version of this article.

On March 9, I published an open letter to Manchester’s Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art (CFCCA), withdrawing my participation from the exhibition “A New Constellation: Chinese Diaspora Now.” This move was prompted by the sudden departure of CFCCA’s curator, Tiffany Leung, which highlighted the reality of a systemic problem. Of the organization’s remaining team, only one is a non-white person. The situation reflects a wider demographic imbalance across conversations on “Chinese” arts and artists in the United Kingdom and beyond. This disparity perpetuates the overwhelmingly white Eurocentric perspective through which art is presented. As long as we operate in systems that offer more authority to the white voice, whiteness will continue to be the custodian of our narratives. As feminist theorist Donna J. Haraway wrote in (2016), “It matters what matters we use to think other matters