CURATOR IN RESIDENCE : JENNIFER CHU
Feb 8 - Mar 5, 2012
Jennifer Chu is the assistant curator for the Art Promotion Office (APO) in Hong Kong and will be with us here for one month on a curatorial residency. She will begin with a one week residency over at Islington Mill meeting the art scene over in Salford and then will take up her residency with Chinese Arts Centre for the remainder of her stay.

EDUCATION PROJECT : ARTWORK FROM FOUR LOCAL SCHOOLS
Apr 20 - Jun 16, 2012
Chinese Arts Centre is continuing to deliver its 9-month education programme with four schools across the region. The summer term takes Chinese Arts Centre out to Cedar Mount High School in Gorton and Alder High Community School in Tameside, as well as bringing over 120 students back into the gallery! Local artists will be working closely with both schools to create responses to our summer project, 60 Minute Cinema, looking specifically at animation from Hong Kong. Each class will be making their own film through a series of gallery visits, workshops and critique sessions. The final films will be screened in the gallery space for the last week of our 60 Minute Cinema programme. We can’t wait to see the results! This project has been kindly supported by The Prince’s Foundation for Children and the Arts through their Start initiative which provides school students who might otherwise not have the chance to engage with the arts.

60-MINUTE CINEMA
Apr 27 - Jun 9, 2012
During this time, our main gallery space will be transformed into a comfortable seating environment designed for moving images. Three curators, Dong Bingfeng, Teresa Kwong and Amy Cheng have been invited to curate a 60-minute programme of moving images. Each of the curated programmes will be presented for two weeks each. The curators are invited to draw on their specific areas of interest and expertise encompassing artists' film, video and animation, from each of their locations. Their selection reflects their personal interests as well as the differing sociopolitical and cultural contexts of their locations - mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

LYDIA MEIYING
May 19 - Sep 15, 2012
Lydia Meiying is a Manchester based illustrator and pattern designer who graduated from Leeds College of Art in 2008. She designs patterns and graphics for fashion, interiors, design products and trend forecasting. Her practice focuses on creating bright and bold designs using a mixture of hand drawn and CAD elements. She is drawn to nature as inspiration for her work and often likes to blur the lines between contemporary and traditional Chinese design in her imagery. For her First Step showcase, Lydia will use bright colours that are prevalent in Eastern design and used motifs inspired by Chinese culture, heritage and mythology to create a pattern to cover the walls of the stairwell covering.