Asian Academy of Arts Forum Series Successfully Held at UCL London

 

On 28 February 2026, the Contemporary Practices I: Emerging Practices in Contemporary Art and Jewellery forum, organized by the Asian Academy of Arts, was successfully held at the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London. The event brought together artists, curators, researchers, and students to explore the relationships between materials, the body, and cultural context in contemporary creation, with a particular focus on how emerging practices develop and unfold in a global framework.

 

The forum opened with a welcome address by Xiaoming Zhu, Lecturer at UCL IOE and Deputy Director of the Confucius Institute, who highlighted the deeper value of art in education. Drawing from her cross-cultural experience and observations of art teaching in UK secondary schools, she emphasized that art education cultivates creativity, critical thinking, and cultural understanding. Zhu advocated integrating art and visual resources into classroom practice, encouraging experimentation, expression, and exploration as foundational elements for the creative industries. She called for stronger collaboration between educators and art practitioners to bring contemporary perspectives and authentic experiences into education.

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(Xiaoming Zhu, Lecturer at UCL IOE & Deputy Director of Confucius Institute)

 

 

 

The forum continued with a keynote lecture and a roundtable discussion.

 

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Keynote Lecture

 

Lu Ying | Contemporary Jewellery Creation: Material, Body, and Cultural Context

 

Keynote speaker Lu Ying, jewellery artist and designer, and founder of Oriental Naturalism Jewellery and PRIVAGUET Jewellery, framed jewellery as a context-sensitive artistic practice rather than a purely decorative object. She highlighted how the intimacy between jewellery and the body allows it to function as a “proximate cultural language,” generating meaning through everyday experience.

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(Lu Ying, Jewellery Artist and Designer)

 

 

Lu emphasized that materials are never neutral. Discussing titanium, moonstone, and historical decorative traditions, she demonstrated how materials carry technological histories, cultural memory, and aesthetic philosophy. Her 1668°C titanium forging technique exemplifies a methodological tool that integrates craft innovation with explorations of wearer experience, temporality, and cultural translation. She also noted that full comprehension across cultures is not necessary; the significance of contemporary jewellery emerges through bodily experience, wearing, and perceptual engagement.

 

 

 

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Roundtable Discussion

 

Emerging Practices from a Cross-Cultural Perspective

 

Following the keynote, the event moved into the roundtable discussion. The discussion was moderated by Vivian Ni, a Sino-British cultural consultant and founder of West Link Consulting. Panelists included Helen Frosi, Veronique Sangyu Chen (Chen Sangyu), and Lu Ying. Moderator Vivian guided the conversation around materials, situated practice, identity formation, and institutional roles, prompting the panelists to reflect on how materials carry culture and experience, how creation unfolds in cross-cultural environments, how identity is shaped through practice, and the responsibilities of academies, museums, and independent platforms within the ecosystem of emerging art practices.

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(Veronique Sangyu Chen, Curator)

 

 

Veronique Sangyu Chen | Cross-Cultural Curating: Food, Craft, and Local Practices

 

Veronique Sangyu Chen is an independent curator and cross-cultural art practitioner active between China and the UK, and a graduate of the Curating MA program at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her work spans contemporary art, intangible cultural heritage, craft, and food-based art projects, focusing on issues of identity, migration, gender, and locality.

 

In the roundtable, Chen framed cross-cultural curating as a situated, process-oriented form of knowledge production, rather than a simple act of cultural translation or representation. Drawing on her long-term curatorial experience, she discussed how food, materials, and site-specific working methods can be transformed into curatorial methodology, rather than remaining mere cultural symbols.

 

She emphasized that in a globalized context, artistic practice always negotiates the tension between cultural flows and local specificity. Curatorial focus should shift from “cultural presentation” to the design of working methods. By sharing examples from food projects and international residencies in rural China, she further illustrated how shared experience, labor, and collaboration become key mechanisms for generating cultural meaning.

 

Methodologically, Chen noted that the role of the curator is evolving—from an authorial leader to a facilitator, coordinator, and long-term co-creator. Within this framework, cultural identity is not a predetermined premise, but is gradually formed and negotiated through specific practices, collaborations, and situated contexts.​

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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(Helen Frosi, Artist and Curator)

 

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Helen Frosi | Understanding the World in Vibrations: Rethinking Sound, Materials, and Identity

 

Helen Frosi is a course lecturer and doctoral supervisor at the Royal College of Art, Goldsmiths, University of London, and the CHASE-funded program, while also serving as an advisor, curator, and panel member for multiple international art and sound research platforms. She is a UK-based artist, curator, and sound-rhythm practitioner, with work focusing on the relationships between listening, resilience, and perception.

 

In the discussion, Helen shared insights around sound, materials, and identity. She proposed that while sound is often considered “immaterial,” it is fundamentally a form of vibration—everything is composed of vibrations—giving sound a profound materiality and energetic quality. Drawing on her residency experiences, she reflected on how natural environments—mountains, bamboo shadows, birds, and wind—constitute another form of “language,” expanding her understanding of perception and expression.

 

Although known for sound art, she experiments with slow, embodied practices such as sewing, responding to local cultures and communal histories. On identity, she argued that it is shaped both by social structures and inner experience, and must be continuously reinterpreted within relationships. She encouraged young artists to trust their own experiences and seek creative pathways within openness and fluidity.

 

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Lu Ying | When Materials Are Worn: How Jewellery Generates Culture on the Body

 

During the roundtable, Lu Ying further addressed the topic of materials and authorship. She emphasized that in jewellery creation, materials possess not only physical properties but also generate experiential dimensions through contact with the body. Wearing a piece is not a post-completion act but a continuation of the creative process. She highlighted that the significance of contemporary jewellery does not reside solely in its visual form, but emerges continuously through bodily movement, the passage of time, and the interplay with cultural contexts.

 

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Event Background

 

The Emerging Practices in Contemporary Art and Jewellery forum is the first event in the Asian Academy of Arts’ Contemporary Practices Forum Series, launched in 2026 by Fang Ting Ting, the dean of the Asian Academy of Arts. The series is part of the Academy’s academic exchange program, focusing on contemporary methodologies, material research, and cross-cultural practice. The forum at UCL IOE provided a platform for artists, curators, and researchers to discuss how emerging creators engage with materials, bodily experience, and process-oriented methods to address complex cultural and identity questions in a global context.

 

 

 

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