Art gallery celebrating brightening up Britain for 30 years

Chen Yin-Ju's Liquidation Mapswords. [Photo/China Daily]

Manchester's Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art, the most influential UK gallery of its kind, is celebrating 30 years of promoting creativity and cultural understanding with three autumn exhibitions and the launch of a new book.

The book will be unveiled on Thursday along with the shows, which will continue until the new year.

Taiwan artist Chen Yin-Ju. [Photo/China Daily]

Taiwan artist Chen Yin-Ju's Extrastellar Evaluations II is an audio-visual installation accompanied by objects, texts and drawings exploring the order and meaning of the solar system. It was inspired by Galileo's book A Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying (1945-2016) by Yorkshire artist Kirsty Harris is on show in Gallery 2. It explores the idea of nuclear explosions as cultural, historical and aesthetic objects, through a series of prints, drawings, and the sound of music derived from nuclear blasts.

And Open Studio, from the gallery's artist-in-residence, Kuo I-Chen, explores his many collaborations with artists and students and the links he has made through his STUPIN website, which is a platform through which artists can swap their studios and resources.

The Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art began in 1986 when artist Amy Lai organized a Chinese cultural festival in Manchester's Chinatown. During the next three decades, it moved three times and had two name changes before settling on its current incarnation in the Market Buildings on Thomas Street in Manchester's Northern Quarter.

It claims to be "the UK's leading organization for the promotion of Chinese contemporary art, producing an internationally renowned artistic program and developing a reputation as a center for research".

Curator Ying Tan said the gallery was featuring installations from high-profile artists each month to mark its anniversary. Those taking part include Cao Fei, Tsang Kin-Wah, Lee Mingwei and Susan Pui San Lok.