Yuer

Poet, Curator, and Cross-Media Artist

Yuer engages with contemporary art and writing through her multifaceted artistic experiences. Drawing inspiration from the body language of dance, she extends her practice into visual art spaces and then translates her visual insights into textual expressions. Through her跨界 (cross-boundary) and 游离 (nomadic) approach, she explores the boundaries and diversity of artistic creation, achieving a uniquely personal mode of expression.

She is also a poet and poetry event curator. Having participated in the "Beijing Poetry Festival" for nine consecutive years, she was awarded the "Golden Sunflower Prize" at the 7th Beijing Poetry Festival and was elected as the Chair of the Beijing Poetry Festival Council in 2021. In 2019, she attended the Havana International Poetry Festival, where her works were translated into English and Spanish for publication. She has also participated in numerous events such as the "Tianwen Poetry Festival," "Qinghai Lake International Poetry Festival," and "Chengdu International Poetry Week." She has published individual poetry collections, Twilight in Spring and Autumn and Under the Light, as well as a collaborative poetry collection, Weijing and the Reverse . In 2024, she founded the UK-based "Ruth International Arts Festival."

Cheng Xi

Curator, Researcher, Writer, and Social Theater Practitioner

Cheng Xi engages in practices such as curation, archival research, poetry writing, documentary filmmaking, experimental performance, and social theater. His research primarily focuses on social field observations and avant-garde consciousness within historical contexts, aiming to construct a dialogue between historical avant-garde movements and contemporary cutting-edge practices. He adopts an interdisciplinary research approach, often collaborating deeply with scholars, creators, and grassroots workers from various fields. His long-term research projects, based on oral history and philological methods, excavate and organize the folk memories, poetry communities, avant-garde art practices, and personal histories of China in the 1960s and 1970s. These historical materials are then critically examined and practically transformed within the context of contemporary globalization.

In recent years, his research has expanded to include youth cultural autonomy, community organization, art ecosystems, and cutting-edge practices in cross-cultural contexts. He actively organizes and participates in current practices that are "indescribable, ongoing, and naturally evolving." During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he initiated experimental projects such as Tianyan, Wuhé Theater, and Personal Histories. These projects, through diverse "wild" practices including poetry, body, video, sound experiments, theater, and social intervention, aim to break boundaries of geography, culture, concepts, and media, connecting avant-garde practitioners from different regions and countries to explore the expanded possibilities of art as a medium of expression today.

His major curatorial and practical projects include:

- The 1970s: Poetry, Art, Salons, and Memories of Educated Youth (2015, Beijing)

- The End of March, or the Wasteland of April: Genzi and the Genealogy of Chinese Contemporary Poetry (2016, Beijing)

- Chinese Avant-Garde Art Communities of the 1960s and 1970s: The Undercurrent of Pioneer Poetry (2016, Beijing)

- The 1970s: Tragic Passion, Poetry, and Painting (2016, Beijing)

His major experimental projects include:

- Tianyan (2020, Beijing)

- Game Theater | Personal Histories: "The Story of Mulan" – Narratives of Grassroots Migrant Women (2022, Beijing)

- Wuhé Theater: Sleeping Together or Not Sleeping (2023, Beijing)

- Beijing Poetry Festival | Wuhé Theater: Multitudes (2023, Beijing)

- Ruth International Arts Festival (2024, UK)

- Shanhai Chronicles: Chasing Waves 1 (2024, Hainan)