Jing Cheng: A Curator’s Path Toward Public Art in China

Black and white image of Jing Cheng center frame, looking into camera. Jing has black hair and white shirt

Written by Elva Zhang, Visual Arts Administration, ‘25

For Jing Cheng, curating is not merely a matter of written theory, it is fundamentally about creating real encounters between people and art. “Curating happens when you stand in the space, speak with artists, think about how a work breathes in public, and design the moment someone meets it for the first time,” she reflects. It is this belief in curating as an experiential, face-to-face practice—rather than just a logistical or textual one—that has guided her path in shaping meaningful public cultural experiences in contemporary China.

Her earliest encounters with contemporary art came through her family. Her father was among China’s first professional gallerists and helped introduce Chinese artists to the West. Although that background could have led her straight into the gallery world, Jing initially resisted. She wanted to build an identity independent from her father’s influence and wasn’t interested in the market-driven side of art.

Her perspective began to shift during her undergraduate years at Central Saint Martins in London. There she realized that visual expression extended beyond fine art into fashion, graphic design, and other aspects of everyday life. That broadened outlook pushed her to consider cultural identity, subjectivity, and how art circulates in public rather than remaining confined to white-cube space.

After graduating, she interned at UCCA in 2018, at a time when private museums in China were booming yet struggling with sustainability. The experience convinced her of the need for stronger institutional models, leading her to pursue NYU’s Visual Arts Administration (VAA) program with a focus on nonprofit strategy. At VAA she gained practical tools in governance and strategic planning, while also cultivating a broader, civic-minded approach to audiences and systems. She also interned at Creative Time in New York, where she witnessed how contemporary art could engage directly with the public sphere. That experience gave her confidence to work on site-specific projects and to think beyond traditional museum audiences — lessons that continue to shape her curatorial practice in China.

Instead of pursuing a career in the U.S., Jing chose to return home after graduation. “I believed I could make more impact in China,” she says, pointing to the opportunities available to young curators in a fast-developing cultural environment. In 2021 she officially joined UCCA Lab, the cross-disciplinary department of UCCA that collaborates with governments, brands, and communities to deliver projects beyond the gallery. The role requires careful negotiation: balancing institutional values and artists’ visions with the strategic goals of funders and partners.

This balance is especially evident in her public art projects. Her first UCCA Lab project in 2021, in Guangzhou’s Yongqing Fang, paired contemporary artists with local intangible cultural heritage practices through direct community engagement. More recently, in Shanxi’s Jincheng, she co-curated a hybrid program combining installations with traditional theater and performance, designed to resonate with local audiences rather than transplant unfamiliar art into a smaller city.

Among her most ambitious projects is the 2024 Jing’an International Sculpture Project in Shanghai. Under the curatorial theme Echoes Among Us, the exhibition showcases works by thirty-one artists from ten countries, with 70 percent being newly commissioned for the city. Jing was particularly interested in provoking a dialogue between the evolution of sculpture and its shifting role in public life, staging encounters between modernist pioneers such as Martial Raysse and George Rickey and contemporary artists like Claudia Comte and Camille Henrot. For many participating artists, it was their first time producing public artwork in China. Departing from the static monuments and traditional park sculptures to the public, the exhibition also welcomed architect and artists working across sound, performance and participatory practice to create interactive encounters within the city. Yet curating at this scale in the urban space also brought unforeseen challenges. Three days before the opening, a historic typhoon struck Shanghai, forcing the team to make rapid decisions about safety, logistics, and schedules. For Jing, the experience underscored that curating in the public realm is as much about responsiveness, negotiation, and problem-solving as it is about artistic vision.

Working on such projects has also sharpened her awareness of structural challenges in China’s art ecosystem. Without a strong network of patrons or foundations, institutions must experiment with sustainable models that balance government support, cooperate collaborations, and cultural value. For UCCA Lab, that has meant developing hybrid programming to broaden audiences while maintaining curatorial standards.

Jing describes her curatorial approach as collaborative and open-ended. She sees her strength in bringing together people with different interests to find shared ground. Rather than insisting on her singular voice, she prefers exhibitions that remain interdisciplinary and accessible. At the same time, she recognizes the constraints of working in China, where exhibitions as direct social critique can be limited. Instead, she frames her work as contributing to social development within the realities of the context.

For her, curating is an active form of civic imagination — a way of ensuring that art circulates, anchors, and transforms public life. Her advice to current VAA students reflects that vision: “Keep experimenting. School and early-career years are when you can make mistakes that teach you who you are. Theory alone won’t answer that — you have to be on the court.”

Jing Cheng Bio:

Jing Cheng joined UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in 2021 and is currently a curator at UCCA Lab. She graduated from Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, and New York University, with a focus on exploring and experimenting with the multiple possibilities of contemporary art’s engagement with public space and everyday life.

Her recent curated projects include: