Manchester hosts Britain's largest ever Chinese contemporary art event

Britain's largest ever exhibition of contemporary art from China has opened in Manchester as part of Asia Triennial 2014, showcasing some of the foremost contemporary visual art from Asia.

What is the only Asian Art Triennial outside the Asia Pacific region, the event in Manchester, opened on September 27, runs until November 23.

The triennial, a major initiative of MIRIAD, Manchester School of Art's innovative research centre, is a festival of visual culture featuring a series of powerful exhibitions, commissions, and creative interventions by artists who live in, work in or address issues surrounding Asia.

Events are taking place across a number of venues in and around Manchester, including the Imperial War Museum of the North, the Centre for Contemporary Chinese Art, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester Craft and Design Centre, Manchester Cathedral, Manchester's Museum of Science & Industry and the National Football Museum.

For the first time, Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM) also includes a business conference on November 6, which will focus on the Design & Digital sector (Smart Cities), promoting Manchester's ambition to become one of the world's leading digital cities and exploit its global links for greater economic impact.

One of the highlights of the triennial is the largest exhibition in Britain of Chinese contemporary art, taking place at the Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art in Manchester.

It features over 30 major artists from Chinese mainland as well as Taiwan and Hong Kong. The works are being exhibited across six key places in Manchester including ArtWork, The John Rylands Library, Manchester Cathedral, Museum of Science & Industry and National Football Museum.

The centre's curatorial team led by Jiang Jiehong, Professor of Chinese Art at Birmingham City University, and a former curator of Guangzhou Biennale, says the Chinese contemporary art event focuses on 'China's current socio-economic vision, which seemingly presents 'no conflict' but rather, almost poetically, a ' Harmonious Society'.

Since its launch in 2008, the triennial has attracted over 350, 000 visitors with more than 7.5 million people viewing public realm work. ATM brought together six venues in 2008, increasing to 18 in 2011 including non-traditional arts spaces such as Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics and Manchester Cathedral plus collaborations with four universities.

The festival has delivered 58 new visual art and craft commissions, performances and film, exhibited over 380 days, featuring 52 non-Briton and 50 Briton artists.