Chinese Arts Now
COMPANY details
Telephone: +44 (0)207 287 1052
Contact: An-Ting Chang
Email: [email protected]
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MISSION
Chinese Arts Now (CAN) are the platform for all British Chinese artists. We encourage transnational collaborations and support and inspire a new generation of aspiring Chinese artists to pursue careers in the arts.
We produce and curate high quality arts that are imaginative, diverse, vibrant and accessible and which reflect Chinese stories and elements in contemporary and innovative ways. We are to be the go to organisation for experimentation rooted in the classical tradition.
HISTORY
Chinese Arts Now (CAN) is the first National Portfolio Organisation supported by the Arts Council England representing British Chinese artists. CAN was founded in 2005 as a not-for- profit arts organisation (formerly Chinese/Chinatown Arts Space) to develop and commission excellent contemporary British Chinese performing and visual artists, and to create a bridge for collaborations with artists of Chinese and East Asian origin. There is a fantastic pool of talent of British Chinese artists making innovative work. There is not yet a platform for that talent to be presented. CAN aims to be that platform.
In the past CAN has built an extensive network of partner organisations interested in Chinese talent, for example Southbank Centre, Linbury Studio, Tamasha, Yellow Earth, Dance Umbrella, The Place, PRS Foundation, Asia House and Chopsticks Club. CAN also has a close relationship with regional companies such as Pagoda Arts and the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Arts in North West England.
British Chinese by way of clarification, our British Chinese definition includes any person now living in the United Kingdom who is of Chinese descent, irrespective of their, or their family’s, country of birth. There are persons whose family is of Chinese descent living in many countries of the world. If they are now living in the United Kingdom, then they fall within our British Chinese family definition. Thus our use of ‘British Chinese’ covers a wide, dynamic group of artists who identify with both the United Kingdom and their Chinese origins.