Hester

Open from 16 May to 30 Aug Sonic Other__lands is an exhibition and public programme series exploring how sound carries alternate histories of land, water and resistance. Moving through multiple listening points across the Goethe-Institut space, sound—bending, uncontainable, transgressing—continues to unsettle fixed geographies, where belonging fractures along borders, between land lost and land imagined. Featuring works by Nguyễn Trinh Thi (@thidoclab ) Shen Xin Zahra Malkani (@zahrammm ) Priyageetha Dia (@priyageetha.dia ) Trà My Hickin (@tr444my ), Koa Pham (@koapham ) Hong-Kai Wang (@hongkaiwang ) /// Located within Beijing’s 798 Art District, formerly a military-factory complex tied to the production of radio technologies, the project enters into a speculative dialogue with the site’s sonic histories, asking how listening might unmake and remake its infrastructures. First curatorial project by @unruly_ear @_retseh Hosted and supported by @goetheinstitutchina as part of its 798 Teahouse project

[Unruly Ear] is a research and curatorial initiative focusing on critical sound practices and alternative listening, centring sound as a mode of sensing, remembering and resistance. The project emerges from an ongoing engagement with histories at the edges of visibility and audibility, histories that do not easily settle into archives or stable narratives. Founded in early 2026 by @_retseh Conceived as a nomadic initiative, the project will work across different locations and regions, following how sound crosses, and reconfigures borders. The first project is coming up in Beijing - more to follow soon. ————————— [Unruly Ear] 是一个关注批判性声音实践与「听」的研究/策展组织, 以声音作为记忆, 感知与抵抗的场域。源自对处于可见性与可听性边缘, 难以整合入档案或稳定叙事的历史的长期关注。 沿着声音持续穿越, 并重新组织边界的移动路径工作, 项目将以游牧的形式在不同地点展开, 发起策展项目与公共活动。 其中第一个项目近期将在北京进行，欢迎关注

First trip of 2026 to escape the winter in Beijing🌪️has opened up unexpected new research threads Hong Kong / Shenzhen / Guangzhou / Quanzhou / Xiamen // 逃离北京冬天而临时起兴的一次出行 意外又打开了一些新的研究线索 依然反复为港口城市由海洋, 贸易, 迁徙, 劳动交织成的复杂文化所吸引 从香港不对称的双语街道译名所指向的多重/平行历史 到福建非常地方性的海洋经验, 人与神的关系网络, 公共景观中略为单一的离散叙事 // 最后以和两只小猫成为临时室友结束

Really delighted to be a part of the group exhibition <Where the Sea Reaches> which takes the ocean as the point of departure to explore Chinese diasporic histories. For centuries, maritime routes shaped the course of migration — from trading ports to dockside neighbourhoods, where generations of seamen and migrants made their lives between departure and return. It also feels especially resonant to show this work in Shenzhen — a city built on histories of movement and transit. The exhibition will be running until 2 Dec at the He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen. With thanks to the curator Wang Xiaosong and the museum team 🙌🏼 Photos courtesy of He Xiangning Art Museum

“I’m intrigued by the gaps and silences in the archives and much of my work attempts to make visible the layers of erasure and violence embedded within them.” - Hester Yang, artist @_retseh is an artist-researcher based in London and Beijing. Her hybrid practice explores histories at the margins of visibility, working across sound, moving image, and archival interventions. She draws on speculative and collaborative methods to make visible, hidden narratives shaped by displacement, racialised labour, and migration. Recent works have focused on port cities and their colonial entanglements, including her long term research into the hidden histories of the Chinese community in Liverpool. The Undesirables (2023) is a mixed media project that looks into the secret deportation of Chinese seamen in post war Liverpool and its afterlives today. Developed in close collaboration with five families affected by the repatriations, this work is rooted in their lived experience as well as ruptures in the wider community. Their disjointed first-person accounts come together to form a collective re-telling of an erased history. On the 19th October, a secret meeting was called in Whitehall, which sparked the opening of a new file, titled “Compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen”. Outside of her artistic practice, Hester also runs @sine_screen , an independent curatorial collective committed to showcasing moving image works from across East and Southeast Asia. The project opens up space for critical dialogue around dominant representations of ESEA cultures and histories. Hester’s film ‘The Undesirables’ was featured in our latest All Our Stories exhibition, which closed in March 2025. See an excerpt of the film through the 🔗 in our bio. Source: /commons/2021-07-21/debates/A72FC416-BDED-4060-9CDF-60061F12B1C6/ForcedRepatriationOfChineseSeamenFromLiverpoolAfterWorldWarTwo#:~:text=were%20around%202%2C000%20decommissioned%20Chinese,be%20acknowledged%20to%20the%20public.

Two years on from the last edition of Whose Homeland, and three years since the original program at FACT Liverpool back in 2022 — ongoing conflicts, displacement, and the policing of belonging have all unsettled the very notions of home. Our understanding of “homeland,” and of what it means to curate East and Southeast Asian cinema in the UK, has continued to evolve in response. We are bringing back this season to revisit questions we started with around diaspora and rootedness, while introducing new curatorial threads that expand and deconstruct these ideas further. A personal highlight is the two screenings spotlighting the collaborative practice of Taiwanese filmmaking group Your Bros 你哥影视社 on 2nd and 9th Nov. Accompanied by an event bringing together artist and community workers to explores socially engaged practices, asking what it means to make work with and alongside migrant communities today. More details and booking on @sine_screen 👀

Chinese Seamen, Diasporic Archives & Moving-Image Activism — a talk by Hester Yang at Making Space. Date & time: Sun, 28 Sep 2025, 19:30 Address: No. 11, Xinliyuan 3rd St, Xinzao Town, Panyu, Guangzhou (nav: PA·COFFEE) Part I revisits Liverpool: “The Undesirables (213/926)” on the secret post-war deportation of Chinese seamen and its intergenerational afterlives, and “An Imaginary Archive of Pitt Street,” reimagining a vanished dockside neighborhood. Part II introduces Sine Screen, a London-based screening collective using decentralized curation to foreground marginal and diasporic histories across ESEA contexts. About the Speaker Hester Yang is a London/Beijing–based artist-researcher and curator whose practice investigates memory, erasure, migration, and diasporic experience. Her mixed-media project “The Undesirables (213/926)” was selected for New Contemporaries 2023 and has shown across major UK and China venues. More details via the link in bio. Images courtesy of the artist. #HesterYang #SineScreen #diaspora #diasporicarchives #movingimage #ESEA #Liverpool #ChineseSeamen #makingspace #MakingSpace #communityhistory #counterarchives #curation #independentcinema #artandactivism #GuangzhouArts #artspace #artisttalk #contemporaryart #researchbasedpractice

Thrilled for The Undesirables to screen in Germany for the first time at @gemeindekoeln as part of the <Erinnerungen an Heute> festival of dance, film and visual arts. Huge shout out to @alisa.berger.mun for the invite 🙌🏼 Thursday, August 7, 2025 8:00 PM – 9:45 PM The festival runs until 28 August /open-air-passagen-kino-donnerstag-7-8/

Snapshots from last month's trip to Penang & Ipoh 👀

Back in April, we held the first session of Against the Grain workshop series at @maydayrooms . Drawing from the incredible collections housed there—including selected issues of Race Today, Spare Rib, and other radical publications—we read and dissected archival texts, experimented with collective writing and performance, and reflected on what it means to read against dominant historical narratives. Next up: Join us for a public talk where we’ll be opening up the space to all, alongside writers and practitioners Lola Olufemi (@lowlamichelle ) and Sun Park (@coco____ ) tomorrow afternoon Sat 17th at Mayday Rooms. The talk will be a reflection on how erasure, speculation, and collective working can disrupt linear history and open up plural futures. Drawing from their practices across archival research, feminist organising, and collective work, the conversation will also explore what it means to engage with the archive in relational and resistant ways. 4-5pm at @maydayrooms Sat 17th May DM Sine Screen for a place to join the talk! The event is part of <Vulnerable Histories> 2024-25, supported by Arts Council England @aceagrams

“Pitt Street is an era as much as a place.” Created for 'Voicing the Archive' – a series of commissioned audio-visual works that reimagine stories of early Chinese migration to Britain – Hester Yang's 'An Imaginary Archive of Pitt Street' follows a young woman searching for a man known in her family only as 'Ah Sam'. As she uncovers traces of Ah Sam in the archives, her speculative journey reimagines the histories of Liverpool's Pitt Street, home to one of the earliest Chinese communities in Europe, and its inhabitants. Experience all of the new works created for 'Voicing the Archive' now on our website via the link in bio. From 1 – 25 May you can also call into our Communal Project Space to encounter a showcase of the project, including additional images, timelines and texts. ‘Voicing the Archive’ is curated by Wenny Teo and co-curated by Jo-Lene Ong. The project is generously supported by The Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Global.

Introducing Against the Grain: a workshop series exploring the practice of erasure poetry and speculative means of engaging with marginal histories. How do we engage with histories that have been erased, silenced, or fragmented? How can acts of reading, redaction, and re-writing become tools for resistance? Against the Grain invites participants to explore erasure poetry as a method of intervention—both as a creative practice and as a means of critically engaging with archives. Originating from the postmodern tradition of found poetry, erasure poetry transforms existing texts by “erasing” or removing words, to make visible hidden narratives or plural histories within a singular text. This process of working against the grain—reading between the lines of history—serve as a radical means of re-claiming lost voices and imagining counter-histories. Taking place across 2 sessions at @maydayrooms on 17th April (18:30 - 21:00) and 17th May (13:00 - 15:30). Workshop 02 will be followed by an open talk and discussion about the intersections of erasure poetry, speculative writing, and counter-archival practices. Speakers to be announced soon. Curated with Makella Ama @ma.kevelli 🔥 FREE entry but spaces are very limited, register your interest by 10th April 🔗 Find out more details from link in bio Poster design by @jerychen5346 The event is part of our ongoing season <Vulnerable Histories> 2024-25, supported by Arts Council England @aceagrams