Ye Funa (she/her) is an artist and researcher based between London and Beijing. Funa’s politically charged practice employs pastiche, satire and digital participation to critique systems of authority and cultural uniformity. Recent works include the internet-based projects Exhibitionist: Curated Nail and Smart Master, alongside exhibitions at 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney; Nottingham Contemporary; Museum für Fotografie, Berlin; and esea contemporary, Manchester. A committed self-publisher, Funa co-founded MondayOFF and edits artist books such as Shamate Zine and Fire Golden Flowers. She teaches at the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing, and the Slade School of Fine Art, UCL.
Ye Funa was the 2024 Asymmetry Librarian-in-Residence.
Tian Jiayi is a PhD candidate in Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. Within the realms of cultural sociology and the sociology of the arts, his research seeks to understand the meaning of creativity for self-taught artists in contemporary China and how it shapes their artmaking. He is also interested in artists’ identity, cultural governance, and the cultural change in modern and contemporary China. He now serves as the PhD representative at the Sociology of the Arts Study Group of BSA. His first peer-reviewed article appeared on Cultural Sociology, which discussed the identity transformation of Dafen painters.
Dr Linzhi Zhang is a British Academy Postdoctoral Researcher at the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her current research project looks at women's labour in contemporary Chinese art, drawing upon sociology, feminism, and art history. She received her PhD in sociology from the University of Cambridge and is passionate about interdisciplinary research on visual arts.