Join us for the preview of Two Improvisations at esea contemporary, the first UK institutional solo exhibition by Chris Zhongtian Yuan. Born in Wuhan and based in London, Yuan is an artist and filmmaker who works across video, sound, performance, and sculpture, using improvisation and storytelling to explore how personal histories, subcultures, and marginalised communities sit within broader political, cultural and institutional narratives.
Taking place during esea contemporary’s 40th anniversary year, the exhibition also coincides with the 40th anniversary of Manchester and Wuhan’s twinning as sister cities — placing Two Improvisations within a broader history of cross-cultural artistic dialogue and exchange.
Two Improvisations: A Punk Musical (2026), commissioned by esea contemporary, forms the second instalment of a planned film and performance trilogy examining the Yěrén (野人), a mysterious ape-like figure rooted in Chinese history and folklore. For Yuan, this elusive ‘wild man’ becomes a stand-in for the artist: a figure both visible and othered, alternately mythologised, pursued, and misunderstood.
The new commission, shown in the main gallery, comprises two films that combine stop-motion animation and musical performance. In the Communal Project Space, a stage lined with handmade props brings the film's miniature world into tangible form.
Underpinned by punk impulses of rebellion and the handmade, and arising defiantly from a particular cultural moment, Two Improvisations mobilises DIY as a method and a stance, generating visual and aural stimuli that resist disciplinary containment.
Advance booking for this free event is recommended due to limited capacity.
Chris Zhongtian Yuan (b. 1988, Wuhan) is an artist based in London. Their practice centres on ‘punk filmmakingʼ, which deploys techniques drawn from improvisational music and experimental animation. Moving fluidly between reality and myth, digital and analogue, Yuan's work examines the role of memory in familial, domestic and institutional spaces and relationships.
Yuan has presented work internationally, including at John Hansard Gallery; Studio Voltaire; Surplus Space, Wuhan; Current Plans, Hong Kong; Somerset House; Reading International; Macalline Art Center, Beijing; The Courtauld Institute of Art; Kunsthal Rotterdam; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; Guangdong Times Museum; Whitechapel Gallery; OCAT Institute, Beijing; Power Station of Art; Videox Zurich; and the International Film Festival Rotterdam, among others. They have also contributed to the Venice Architecture Biennale (Greek Pavilion) and the B3 Moving Image Biennale. Yuan holds an AA Diploma from the Architectural Association School of Architecture.
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