esea contemporary
[4] In the mid-1980s, Amy Lai, an artist and radio producer based in Manchester, thought there was a general lack of Chinese cultural activities compared to events arranged by the Asian and Caribbean communities.
[10] The CVAA opened the Chinese Arts Centre on 21 October 1989, on the first floor of Frazer House, Charlotte Street, in Manchester's Chinatown.
[11] The centre facilitated artist-led educational workshops and had a long relationship with local practitioners, such as Mary Tang and Cathy Wu.
[16] The centre was relaunched in October 1993 with a renewed mission to promote a wide range of traditional and contemporary art forms and would use its artistic and education programmes to progress how Chinese culture was perceived in the UK.
[20] The new ways of working were tested between September 1995-March 1996 whilst the centre was one of the hosts of the British Art Show 4 and during their lunar new year activities.
[17] Around this time, the CVAA discovered that their 1996-1997 grant from their core funder, the North West Arts Board (NWAB), was to be almost halved.
Initially, the centre's programme largely featured solo shows of existing works by artists such as Adam Hongshan Wei and Anthony Key, or touring exhibitions, such as Nora Fok's Galaxies.
[32][29][33] When the venue was refurbished after a fire in 1998, the centre began to commission new site specific works by UK-based artists of east Asian heritage to use the new space to its best advantage.
[34][35] Between 2000 and 2003, the New Commissions scheme produced 8 exhibitions by emerging artists such as Suki Chan, Lisa Cheung, Gayle Chong Kwan, and Jiang Jiehong.
[36] As part of its agency work, the centre extended the scope of its educational workshops to a national audience and acted as a focal point for other businesses and art organisations who wanted to know more about Chinese culture.
[30] As a result, the centre produced Representing the People (1999), its first major touring exhibition to feature works by artists from mainland China.
[40][41] The new venue on Thomas Street opened on 28 November 2003, after the organisation had received a £2.2 million lottery grant from Arts Council England.
[45][44] Between 2005 and 2007, the centre developed a relationship with Live Art UK to promote the work of performance artists from China and the Chinese diaspora.
The collection would include works by international artists[15] and would be developed with input from the curators at CFCCA and academics at the University of Salford.
[15] The event was widely seen as a bid to bring Chinese investment into the city as part of Osborne's vision for a Northern Powerhouse.
[49] Following public accusations of racism made against the centre in early 2020, and the withdrawal of several artists from exhibitions in 2020, CFCCA embarked on a 'Revisioning' project to help shift the organisation towards better practices and positive change.
