Xu Ziyang’s studio method makes cross-culture feel real

studio-based cross-cultural – From Hangzhou to London, curator and gallerist Ziyan Xu is pushing back against the art world’s tendency to treat cross-cultural work like packaging. Her answer is unexpectedly old-fashioned: studios first, repeated conversations, and exhibitions built around

On the wall, the work looks composed. But behind it is a different kind of labour—slow, personal, and full of negotiation. In Ziyan Xu’s practice, the studio isn’t a backdrop for inspiration. It’s where meaning gets tested. where power is felt. and where the “cross-cultural” label can either flatten a person—or finally make room for them.

Xu’s approach takes aim at the art world’s extractive habits and the prevailing talk around cross-cultural practice. a framework Hito Steyerl has already critiqued by insisting that a studio is not neutral: it’s a site of labor. precarity. and politics. Xu’s response is less theoretical than procedural. To curate from the studio. she argues through her work. is to engage the conditions of production—not just present a product.

That philosophy runs through how she curates and how she builds trust with artists. Working across China. the United Kingdom. and Europe. Xu grounds her curatorial framework in the necessity of recognising where artworks originate: the artists’ particular stories. their lived experiences between cultures. and the way those experiences translate in the studio into form. material. and concept. For her, cross-culture is not a neatly wrapped concept—no styles, no motifs, no colours neatly swapped between audiences. It’s the artist’s background, their lives between cultures, and how lived experience becomes something shareable in exhibition form.

Before every exhibition. the method is plain and demanding: Xu visits the artist’s studio several times. learns about their lives. residencies. and backgrounds. and discusses the work in person rather than only through a screen. Those discussions aren’t treated as an informational step. They are the foundation for curatorial decisions that grow out of long-term conversation—decisions Xu frames as faithful to an artist’s reality rather than a curatorial concept imposed from the outside in. The studio becomes, in her telling, a way to build trust and respect between artist and curator.

It’s a philosophy that becomes concrete in exhibitions—especially in Hangzhou. where her show Blooming Dartmoor at Lian Art Museum brings together over 100 works by 18 artists from the UK. Greece. Italy. Singapore. and China. The exhibition’s curatorial narrative takes the Buddhist concept of paramita (the other shore) and folds it into the mythological landscape of Dartmoor Forest. using that terrain to explore diasporic subjects’ cultural memory and identity reconstruction.

Even the layout is built to keep audiences moving, not just looking. The spatial design features five zones, with eight interwoven wall panels and single-sided glazing arranged in a U-shape. Four floating walls are suspended 30cm above the ground. producing visual permeability—when facing one wall. viewers could glimpse the next space. The effect is layered and flowing as the exhibition unfolds.

The show is also structured to meet viewers where they are. The first room features Chinese artists working with traditional watercolour or ink on silk and paper. a familiar entry point for Chinese audiences. Later rooms shift into increasingly experimental, cross-cultural works by London-based and mixed-background artists. Xu’s stated interest isn’t simply to contrast styles. The curatorial structure is meant to stay in sync with the conceptual framework and with the participating artists themselves.

Xu doesn’t stop at the gallery door. She extends the cross-cultural approach through education programmes linked to the show. Students are invited to visit, and she organises and guides discussions to create a learning-based audience. There’s also a quiet participative quality: some visitors touch the exhibited objects and patterns directly. while a more cautious audience asks for permission first. In both cases, Xu guides visitors from conceptual engagement into physical experience.

In London, her methodology becomes even more intimate. A Table Fable (2024) is set not in a conventional venue but in Xu’s own apartment. where she collaborated with multiple artists—including an Italian food artist—to transform the space into an installation blending painting. sculpture. and food. The exhibition is designed for social and sensory interaction. turning the familiar idea of home into a challenge to definitions of both home and exhibition.

Instead of the usually cold, distanced atmosphere associated with galleries, the apartment becomes an environment of shared intimacy and creativity. Food acts as the link between art and audience. connected to what Xu terms “effective friction”: moments where different frameworks meet without premature resolution. The Italian food artist’s dishes double as edible artworks, so guests experience the show through taste, touch, and smell.

Every guest receives a ceramic plate—then the plate changes hands every five seconds, creating several unique collaborative plates. The quick handoffs break distance between audience and art, pushing conversation and reflection as the evening unfolds. Through this interactive setting. Xu explores how people emotionally and socially respond when art isn’t precious on walls but instead tied to food and play.

Xu’s “nomadic” curatorial model moves between different spaces and venues depending on the project while preserving a specific curatorial message. “Most urgent conversations in contemporary art happen at the edges: between cultures. between languages. between structures of power that rarely acknowledge one another.” In practice. she facilitates dialogue between London artists and Chinese audiences through exhibitions. residencies. and art fairs. working in close collaboration with XIMA Gallery—which has three spaces in China—and with the founder of Whiteshepherd Art in London.

The point isn’t to turn cross-cultural work into a bridge with a smooth crossing. “We do not seek to build a bridge between East and West—a bridge implies symmetry that does not exist. We seek instead to create conditions for effective friction: moments where different aesthetic frameworks. viewing habits. and critical languages meet without being prematurely resolved.”.

That insistence on friction lands differently when you consider who Xu is in the ecosystem. She is a curator. gallerist. and the founder of Whiteshepherd Gallery. and she grew up painting. trained formally in fine art. and later pursued an MA in Curating and Collections at University of the Arts London. The transition—moving between the world of making and the world of framing—sharpens her understanding of how context shapes meaning and how institutional structures determine whose work is seen and where.

Her perspective is rooted in being someone who belongs fully to neither China nor London. with a focus on artists who occupy in-between spaces: cross-cultural practitioners. particularly those from Asia. navigating diaspora. displacement. and the negotiation of identity across borders. Over five years. she has developed an independent curatorial model designed to give these artists professional infrastructure at the earliest stages of their careers—support aimed at addressing a structural gap within the UK’s contemporary art ecology. where support for international emerging artists remains scarce.

She also resists being called a “cultural bridge,” describing it as passive—implying equal passage where none exists. Her alternative is effective friction, alongside effective ambiguity as core methodologies. In her framing. it’s the deliberate refusal to smooth over the real asymmetries of power. language. and market dynamics that shape how art moves between cultures. Instead of premature resolution of cultural differences. she wants conditions where different aesthetic frameworks and viewing habits can meet without being immediately reconciled.

In the end. Xu’s studio-first practice brings cross-cultural curating back to something rarer than it sounds: a long. slow. trust-based conversation. The exhibitions that follow don’t pretend the asymmetries are gone. They make room for how those asymmetries actually feel—how they show up in material. in decisions. and in the distance that gets broken only when people are invited to speak. taste. touch. and stay long enough to be understood.

Ziyan Xu cross-cultural curating studio practice lived context Blooming Dartmoor Lian Art Museum A Table Fable effective friction Whiteshepherd Gallery Hito Steyerl