ATM Symposium: Transvaluation

The Symposium which accompanies the sixth edition of Asia Triennial Manchester (ATM6) extends questions around ‘transvaluation’, the overarching curatorial framework established by the curatorial assembly. To transvalue means to transgress the logic of value and the systemic structures it legitimises. The triennial brings together a diverse body of works by more than 30 international practitioners, which commune in their creation of new ways to think about value, extending beyond economic value, efficiency and utility to establish new conceptions of social, sexual, ecological, indigenous and decolonial relations. The triennial also seeks to question and complicate the symbolic, cultural, political and poetic values associated with Asia today. 

Manchester is an apt site for this edition’s critical inquiry. As one of the historical cradles of capitalism, industrial modernity and communism — the city in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels famously came together to theorise revolution — it holds symbolic weight in any reconsideration of value. Engels’ ‘The Condition of the Working Class in England’ (1845) remains a powerful document testifying to industrial violence, urban transformation and social precarity. Informed by the climate catastrophe, the triennial further investigates how the conditions of the Anthropocene complicate the ways in which value is attributed and shared across human, animal, and non-human systems. 

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAMME 

10.00 – 10.10 Welcoming remarks

10.10 – 10.40 Performance Lecture, FILIPINOS, CANNIBALISM, AND MOTHERS DANCING ON TONGUES (2020-2022) by Stephanie Misa

10.45 – 11.45 Roundtable with the Curatorial Assembly of ATM6: Hongjohn Lin, Henk Slager, Miya Yoshida, Kalen Lee, Anna Bergqvist and Sarah James (15 mins Q&A from audience, 11.45-12.00).

12.00 – 13.00 LUNCH

13.00 – 13.45: Artists’ Roundtable with ATM6 participating artists: Chia-Wei Hsu, Tiong Ang, Ziliä Qunsará and Angie Chia-Lin Lee, moderated by Vera Mey (15 mins Q&A from audience, 13.45-14.00).

Three Reflections on Transvaluation and the Wider Context:

14.00 – 14.20 Chia-Wei Hsu, ‘Stacked Databases: From Colonial-Era Encyclopaedias to Contemporary AI’

This presentation examines the role of artificial intelligence within the information society through the poetic reconfiguration of the database. It explores different notions of databases—from encyclopaedic knowledge production during the colonial era to the technological reproducibility of film history and, finally, the emergence of AI—viewed through the lens of the artist’s own research-based practice. By tracing the historical evolution of the database, the presentation investigates its contemporary potential as both a conceptual and methodological framework. The research also focuses on the microstructure of AI hardware, particularly the CoWoS chip, a key technology in modern AI computing that enables chip stacking. Beyond the physical stacking of chips, AI computation unfolds within an abstract, high-dimensional mathematical space in which all entities are decomposed into smaller units called tokens. Through a process known as embedding, these tokens are transformed into complex numerical vectors distributed across multidimensional space. This talk explores how the interpretive frameworks once defined by human-centered keywords are thereby dismantled, allowing heterogeneous databases to collide, merge, confront, and coexist, leading to a networked understanding of the multiplicity of databases.

14.20 – 14.40 Dr Amanda Ju, ‘Asia, Method, Attempt: Two Instances of the Common Form’ 

In her reflections on “seeking Asia,” the intellectual historian Sun Ge revisits Takeuchi Yoshimi’s 1960 lecture “Asia as Method,” where Takeuchi proposed Asia not as an object of study but as a method—an “inversion” of Western values to test their possibilities through other expressions. For Sun, such inversion aims at a universality forged not by abstraction but by mediation among particulars, disclosing connections that link what is otherwise different. Responding to this call, this paper reads together two artists often confined to national frames: Chinese painter Xie Nanxing (b. 1970) and Japanese artist Katsura Yuki (b. 1913). Both engage the “common sense” of art through popular forms. In Xie’s 1990s paintings, the vulgarity of socialist realism becomes a site of post-socialist plasticity; in Katsura’s work, folklore—layered and satirical—unsettles moral consensus across fascism, Occupation, and postwar democracy. Together, they show how vulgarity and folklore become grounds for reworking common forms of embodiment. 

14.40 – 15.00 Dr Wenny Teo, ‘Coolie’ Infrastructures: Aesthetic transvaluation and the Afterlives of ‘Free’ Labour’ 

By the time Friedrich Engels published The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), the exploitative system of low-wage labour he observed in industrial cities such as Manchester already extended far beyond Britain’s shores. After abolition, hundreds of thousands of Indian and later Chinese indentured ‘coolie’ workers were recruited and transported across the British Empire to work in plantations, railways, mines and ports as a cheap substitute for enslaved labour. Although promoted as a ‘free’ form of work and migration, indenture was slavery ‘in all but name’, epitomising the abstraction of value under industrial capitalism. ‘Coolie’ workers were coerced into debt-bondage through exploitative contracts and were ultimately dehumanised, rendered disposable, and erased from imperial records. This paper examines the work of contemporary artists who excavate these forgotten histories, tracing an artistic topology of ‘coolie’ infrastructures across land and sea. It considers the extent to which their practices constitute an aesthetic transvaluation of ‘free’ labour and reveals how the moral fictions and extractive logic of empire continue to shape the geopolitical, economic and ecological imaginaries of the present. 

15.00-15.15: Audience Q&A for speakers

15.15 Closing remarks and an invitation for a curatorial tour of ATM6 led by Kaelen Lee.

Speaker Biographies

Angie Chia-Lin Lee is an independent curator based in Taipei. She graduated from the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Taiwan University and the Institute of Contemporary Art & Social Thoughts at the China Academy of Art. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Fine Arts at Taipei National University of the Arts. Her research focuses on the culture, media, and art developed and created in the digital era. Lee is the founder of ZIMU CULTURE, a studio dedicated to producing contemporary art exhibitions and publishing books. Her recent curatorial projects include the Digital Art Festival Taipei (2023), Sensation (Remix) (2023), Request for Comments (2022), BONK (2022), Hsu Ching Yuan Model House Project (2021), Allegories of the Ocean (2020), and From/To: The Frontier of Chinese Art Education (2018).

Dr Amanda (Xiao) Ju is Lecturer in Contemporary Art at University College London. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art from East Asia and its diasporas, particularly their intersections with global socialism, post-socialism, and gender politics.

Chia-Wei Hsu is an artist, filmmaker, and curator. He assimilates the languages of cinema and contemporary art to interrogate the intricate mechanisms of image production. His work centers on the material and performative dimensions of the cinematic production process, treating the act of filming as an event in its own right. This approach enables him to forge connections among people, materials, and sites that have been marginalized or excluded from dominant historical narratives. Hsu’s work critically examines media as a tool for constructing imaginaries of the world. is works also presented in group shows such as Machine Love at Mori Art Museum (2025; Japan), Untranquil Now at Hamburger Kunsthalle (2024;Germany), Thailand Biennale Chiangrai (2023;Thailand), Aichi Triennale (2022; Japan), Asia Pacific Triennale (2021; Australia), Singapore Biennale (2019), A Tale of Hidden Histories at Eye Filmmuseum (2019; Netherlands), the Biennials of Shanghai, Gwangju, Busan and Sydney (2018), 2 or 3 Tigers at Haus der Kulturen der Welt (2017; Berlin, Germany) and Taiwan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2013; Italy).

Stephanie Misa (US/ PH) was born in Cebu City, Philippines and lives in Vienna, Austria where she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in 2012 in Performative Arts & Sculpture with Prof. Monica Bonvicini. She has a masters from the Interactive Telecommunications Program, Tisch School of the Arts, New York University. She is currently a lecturer at the University of Applied Arts Vienna (Artistic Strategies). Her work consistently displays an interest in complex and diverse histories, relating to these topics through her video work, sculpture, installations, prints, and through her writing. Her current artistic research looks at the persistence of languages relegated to its oral form, and the activation of this “orality” outside the usual educational modes of instruction— its evolution, cannibalism, appropriation of terms, and creative becomings. She has exhibited her work at the Secession (Vienna), Heidelberger Kunstverein, Depo (Istanbul), Kunstraum Lakeside (Klagenfurt), 9th Bucharest Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Arts (Berlin), Museum of Impossible Forms (Helsinki) Yuka Tsuruno Gallery (Tokyo), Gundula Gruber Gallery (Vienna), Lamont Gallery (US), Nha San Collective (Hanoi), Artery (Manila), Galerie 5020 (Salzburg), Sewon Art Space (Jogjakarta), C4 Projects & BKS Garage (Copenhagen), Kunstraum Niederösterreich (Vienna), VBKÖ (Vienna), and the Gymnasium Gallery (UK) to name a few. https://www.stephaniemisa.com/about/cv/

Tiong Ang is a visual artist, filmmaker, curator and educator. His work focuses on the social, emotional and existential challenges of multiple identities, sequential displacement, and the dispersion of images. His approach unfolds human perception and social behaviour, addressing the impact of faded memory, mediatised human experience, and socio-political estrangement. He works in diverse contexts and geographies, stretching the tension between the authenticity of presence and the authorship of representation. His practice embraces a range of media including painting, video, installation, collective performance, experimental film, pedagogy, counselling, and writing.

Dr Wenny Teo is Senior Lecturer in Modern and Contemporary Asian Art at The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. Her research examines transnational modern and contemporary art in relation to infrastructure, geopolitics, migration, ecology and labour, with a particular interest in the cultural imaginaries of the Belt and Road and the Maritime Silk Road. Recent curatorial projects include the online digital project Voicing the Archive at ESEA Contemporary in Manchester, a series of newly-commissioned sound artworks that address archival omissions and silenced histories of Chinese labour migration to the UK. She convenes the Asymmetry Lecture Series in Chinese and Sinophone Contemporary Art at The Courtauld and serves on the editorial board of Oxford Art Journal.

Ziliä Qunsará
Ziliä Qansurá (b. Bashqortostan) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Vienna, Austria. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, as well as at the Russian Institute of Theatre Arts (GITIS), the Institute of Contemporary Art in Moscow, and Ufa College of Art. With a background spanning fine arts, stage design, and performance, her artistic path has taken her across different disciplines and places, shaping her perspective along the way. Growing up in Bashqortostan, she developed an early interest in visual and material culture, as well as the ways in which space, movement, and storytelling shape experience. Initially working in theater and stage design, she later expanded her practice to include installation, textiles, and performance. Moving between different contexts, she has explored ways of working with history, identity, and transformation. This evolving engagement continues to inform her practice, which remains open to shifts in medium, approach, and interpretation.

Hongjohn Lin
Hongjohn Lin is an artist, writer, and curator, and Professor at Taipei University of the Arts. He earned his Ph.D. in Arts and Humanities from New York University. Lin has participated in major exhibitions including Taipei Biennial (2004, 2012), the Manchester Asian Triennial 2008, Rotterdam Film Festival (2008), Guangzhou Triennial (2015), and China Asia Biennial (2014). He curated the Taiwan Pavilion Atopia at the Venice Biennale (2007), co-curated the 2010 Taipei Biennial with Tirdad Zolghadr, and led projects such as The Good Place (Taizhong, 2002) and Live Ammo (2012). He is co-curator of ATM 6: Transvaluation (2025).

Henk Slager
Henk Slager is Senior Lecturer in Artistic Research at Utrecht University of the Arts and a visiting professor at Uniarts Helsinki. He co-initiated the European Artistic Research Network (EARN) in 2004, exploring the impact of artistic research on contemporary art education. Slager has co-produced numerous curatorial projects including the 7th Shanghai Biennale (2008), the Research Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2015–2019), the 5th Guangzhou Triennial (2016), and Farewell to Research at the 9th Bucharest Biennial (2020–2021). His work bridges research, education, and curatorial practice, focusing on the evolving role of artistic inquiry in contemporary art.

Miya Yoshida
Miya Yoshida is Professor of Artistic Research and Head of the Zentrum Fokus Forschung (ZFF) at the University of Applied Arts Vienna. Based in Vienna, she is a curator, art theorist, and cultural practitioner developing projects rooted in artistic research. Yoshida has co-curated ATM 6: Transvaluation (2025), and previous projects include Listening to the Stones (Kunsthaus Dresden, 2021–22), Sharing as Caring (Heidelberger Kunstverein, 2012–2018), and Each Line Is A Crime (Archive Kabinett, Berlin, 2018). She has published widely, including Towards (Im)Measurability of Art and Life (2018) and Listening to the Stones (2023), contributing to contemporary art theory and aesthetics.

Kalen Lee
Kalen Lee (LEE Wing Ki, b.1981) is an independent artist, curator, and researcher based in London and Hong Kong. His practice spans documentary photography, archival research, media archaeology, and contemporary analogue photographic work. Lee’s research explores East-Asian photographic practices, queer studies, and critical digital humanities. He has exhibited internationally, including Austria, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Latvia, Taiwan, the UK, and the US. Educated at the University of Hong Kong and London College of Communication (MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Photography, Chevening Scholar), he founded the artist collective LOVE (2021), supporting queer and gender non-binary communities in the arts.

Yusaku Imamura
Yusaku Imamura is an architect, curator, producer, and educator, serving as Vice President and Professor of Global Art Practice at Tokyo University of the Arts. He was founding director of Tokyo Wonder Site and Special Counsellor for Cultural Policy to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, where he helped establish Arts Council Tokyo and launch initiatives including Festival/Tokyo and Roppongi Art Night. Imamura has advised institutions worldwide, including Haus der Kulturen der Welt (Berlin), Tensta Konsthall (Sweden), and PMQ (Hong Kong). He also directs the Center for Curatorial Studies at Tokyo University of the Arts, overseeing international collaborations such as the Inter-University Exchange Project.

Sarah James
Sarah E. James is Professor of Visual Culture at Manchester School of Art at Manchester Metropolitan University. An art historian, critic and occasional curator, her research focuses on contemporary art, photography, and the visual cultures of the Cold War. She has authored two monographs including ‘Common Ground: German Photographic Cultures Across the Iron Curtain’ (Yale, 2013) and ‘Paper Revolutions: An Invisible Avant-Garde’ (MIT, 2022). James curated ‘The Turner Prize 2022’, at Tate Liverpool, and co-curated ‘Anti-Social Art: Experimental Practices in Late East Germany’ (2022). She has published over 90 reviews and essays in the international art press, and has collaborated on international research projects with institutions including MoMA, Reina Sofia, and HKW Berlin. Her new book project explores ‘Art in an Age of Disaster’.

Anna Bergqvist
Anna Bergqvist is Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University, where she also serves as Postgraduate Research Coordinator. Her work bridges moral philosophy, moral psychology, and philosophy of psychiatry, focusing on moral perception and co-production as tools for social change. Bergqvist is Director of the Values-Based Theory Network at St Catherine’s Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice, University of Oxford, and holds leadership roles in professional bodies including the World Psychiatric Association and the Royal College of Psychiatry. She has been a Visiting Fellow at St Catherine’s College, Oxford, and serves as External Examiner at the University of Liverpool, contributing to philosophy and ethics at national and international levels.

Vera Mey
Dr Vera Mey is an art historian and independent curator. She was awarded her PhD from SOAS, University of London. Most recently, she was Co-Artistic Director of the Busan Biennale 2024. Mey co-founded the scholarly journal ‘Southeast of Now: Directions in Contemporary and Modern Art in Asia’(National University of Singapore Press) and was part of the research colloquium ‘The Color Curtain and the Promise of Bandung’ organised by the Hochschule für Bildende Künste–Städelschule, Frankfurt, and the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, California. She was on the founding curatorial team of the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, where she led the Residencies Programme. More recently, as an independent curator, she has co-curated and curated exhibitions in Bangkok, Berlin, New Zealand, Paris, Phnom Penh, Shanghai, Singapore, and Tokyo.