Conferences

10th Jul 2026
School of Art, Birmingham City University, UK (in-person only)

Over the past nearly two decades, the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts (CCVA) at Birmingham City University has been dedicated to advancing new understandings and perspectives on Chinese contemporary art, design, and visual culture through interdisciplinary practices and theoretical inquiry. Starting from September 2025, CCVA is officially rebranded as the Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts Asia (CCVA Asia), expanding its research scope from China to encompass East and Southeast Asia while maintaining a sustained focus on core issues in Chinese visual culture.

As an annual parallel event to the long-standing CCVA Annual Conference, the PhD Forum was inaugurated in 2023 and has successfully held three editions annually. It has attracted a large number of PhD students and those who are newly awarded with doctorates from universities worldwide, from China, Europe and the UK. Unlike our themed annual conference, the PhD Forum breaks down disciplinary and geographical barriers to form a diverse exchange model of ‘theoretical discussion + practical cases’, with its core values manifested in three key aspects: it deepens research on Chinese contemporary visual culture by covering pivotal areas such as artistic practices in the digital age, cultural identity and memory, art ecology and industry, artistic expression of social issues, and interactions between education and policies; it builds an interdisciplinary dialogue platform that brings together researchers from art theory, media communication, folklore studies, gender studies, digital technology, and other fields; and it supports the academic growth of young scholars by providing a unique space for presenting research outcomes, exchanging ideas, and enhancing professional skills through panel discussions and expert feedback.… Read more ⤻