Xu Ziyang's curatorial practice is examined through a profile that emphasizes her studio-based, trust-building approach to cross-cultural exhibitions. The article highlights her work as a curator and gallerist across China, the UK, and Europe, focusing on her insistence on visiting artists' studios multiple times, learning their backgrounds, and building long-term conversations before making curatorial decisions. It describes her exhibition "Blooming Dartmoor" at Lian Art Museum in Hangzhou, which features over 100 works by 18 international artists and uses the Buddhist concept of paramita to explore diasporic cultural memory and identity reconstruction.
This matters because Xu's methodology offers a counterpoint to the art world's often extractive and superficial engagement with cross-cultural practice. By prioritizing lived context, trust, and slow relationship-building over imposed curatorial concepts, she models a more ethical and deeply rooted form of international curation. The article challenges prevailing norms in galleries and museums, suggesting that genuine cross-cultural understanding requires sustained, in-person dialogue rather than transactional or screen-based interactions.