‘The place lost its way. Now that’s changed’: can a Manchester art museum move beyond its troubled past?

The Centre of Chinese Contemporary Art closed in 2021 after a series of controversies.

Now it’s been relaunched under a new name – and with a new mission In March 2020, the visual artist JJ Chan was assembling video footage for a group exhibition scheduled at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester.

Centred on family VHS tapes, and titled A New Constellation: Chinese Diaspora Now, the artwork was an exploration of Chan’s emotionally complex relationship to Hong Kong, their parents’ birthplace.

When Chan asked for guidance after the sudden departure of the initial curator, the artist discovered that the gallery did not employ anyone who was Chinese: 12 out of the 13 staff members were white, while most of the front-facing (unpaid) volunteers were of Chinese descent.

Fearing their art would be shaped through a white lens, Chan withdrew and published an open letter to the centre, writing: “My experience, and my trauma, are being used as a leg-up into an industry for an already overrepresented demographic.

” Later that year, the organisation recruited seven artists of Chinese heritage to address the lack of diversity before that initiative was cancelled when the artists raised issues surrounding institutional racism with the gallery.

The artist-led working group subsequently petitioned for an international boycott of the institution resulting in the resignation of six board members and several employees.

After closing due to Covid in 2020, the arts space never reopened. Continue reading...