"I see curating as building infrastructures of care that will allow artists and their practices to flourish.'

This statement was made by Hongqian Zhang, the London-based Chinese curator and founder of Artflow Studio, during our recent conversation. Zhang operates out of temporary spaces, with volunteer labour and strict budgets. Her practice is all created with no institutional affiliation, no endowment, nor permanent galleries. Therefore, from a conventional viewpoint, she has no infrastructure. So we may ask, how do you build infrastructures with no traditional measures? And here lies the brilliant curatorial angle of Zhang, where care is not sentimental; it is actually a methodical, systematic work of extreme attention, maintenance, and artists' support that a lot of institutions claim but rarely provide.

And we don't need to go far to fundament Zhang's statement. We just need to have a look at her body of work. In her exhibition '404 Not Found', which closed in July 2025, Zhang's curatorial work extended beyond the exhibition's conclusion. The show consisted of 32 emerging artists from both the UK and China, exploring the glitch aesthetic and digital rupture, and after spending months coordinating installation to execute complex multimedia setups and continuous artist support, she did not stop there. Instead, after the exhibition ended, she supported artists facilitating new collaborations, documented work for portfolios, and maintained close relationships. Several participants have since shown in other venues, a direct result of the network Zhang quietly built.

In her curatorial narrative, infrastructure is not only a philosophy. Even though she doesn't rely on conventional support, Zhang creates a relational architecture that makes curators' and artists’ practices sustainable. In an art world increasingly marked by precarity -especially for Asian artists, especially for women—Zhang's model suggests care itself can be revolutionary. Although, the concept of care is not a new theory and has a specific intellectual genealogy in curatorial practices. In Creating Caring Institutions: Politics, Plurality, and Purpose (2010), feminist political theorist Joan Tronto argues that the often invisible maintenance work is actually what makes society function, being not only a personal affect but also a political infrastructure. Similarly, Maura Reilly in the book Curatorial Activism: Towards an Ethics of Curating (2018) insists that curators must "create new and counter-hegemonic narratives" to challenge and subvert "the hegemony of the white Western male artist" and establish "a more equitable representation." Zhang's institutional care operates within these lines, focusing deeply on how Asian artists are being represented and misunderstood.

But how does this infrastructure of care look in practice? Zhang's curatorial model stands in an undeniable critique of institutional curating, giving space for Chinese traditional art, artists, and women artists to freely showcase their work in relation to Western conceptual landscapes. Even more, she focuses deeply on the characteristics of the artist: “To me, the artist is more important than the artwork in both an intellectual and contextual sense.” The curator describes spending hours in conversation with artists about their anxieties, aspirations, and work. And her support is not temporary; instead, it is focused on building long-term relationships with the artists, but also creating continuous networks between organisations and institutions, so this support is a moving element and not static.

Another example is the exhibition “Brighter than White, Darker than Blue,” presented in August 2025 at Fitzrovia Gallery, London, which showcased the works of Jingdezhen ceramic artist Cheng Linyao (Lin Zi). In this exhibition, the heritage technique ‘Fen Shui’ blue-and-white porcelain adorns both the walls and the gallery floor, where the curator focused on the heritage and traditional connection of the work, but also the conceptual undertones of the artist's methods that made it distinctly contemporary. Zhang not only refined the thematic framework and designed the spatial narrative but also managed the complex logistics of international coordination, collaborating closely with the artist to create an exhibition that “retained cultural authenticity while speaking meaningfully to international audiences.” She focused heavily on not translating heritage and displaying the artist's work as merely ceramic, instead creating an atmosphere that permitted reflection and interpretation by Western audiences.

And this exhibition is not the only example, as 404 Not Found (2025), Echoes Between Us (2025), and Metamorph (2025) have all the same curatorial refinement. The curator has collaborated with over 50 artists from the UK, China, and Europe, and with various different mediums such as video art, video installation, painting, and new media practices. Even more, her curatorial methodology bears an interesting place within current curatorial narratives. As an independent curator, refusing institutional backing- with its compromises and gatekeeping- she gains space, and let's say it, freedom to support exactly the artists institutions may ignore. And this exact freedom let her create this network of care. As art historian Paul O'Neill writes in 'The Culture of Curating (2007),' the contemporary curator now plays a "proactive creative and political part to play in the production, mediation and dissemination of art itself". Therefore, that infrastructure of care is both a solution to the issue and a symptom- it addresses the real need of artists but also exposes the systemic abdication of responsibility by better-funded institutions.

And now you may ask, where does Hongqian Zhang fit in contemporary curatorial discourse? Is this a practice other curators are already trying to implement? These questions by themselves tell us how unique and complex her practice is. I would say she is a feminist curator, by her focus on Asian women and artists, and her methodology would align with curators like Maura Reilly and art historian Linda Nochlin's legacy of making women's work visible. Furthermore, she is also an independent curator, which would fit her within the traditions of Hans Ulrich Obrist and Jens Hoffmann, operating with innovative practice through culture and sustainability. And if we look at another layer of her work, she is also a diasporic curator navigating between East Asian traditional and Western art systems, alongside the internationalist practices of previously mentioned Hou Hanru and Okwui Enwezor.

However, what distinguishes Zhang's practice from all these peers is that all these positions are intertwined. She not only focuses on care, but she enacts it through Asian and women's practices. Not just independent, she is an independent feminist. Not just diasporic, but focused on care and cultural translation. This intersection creates something relatively rare: a curatorial model that's simultaneously political (feminist, postcolonial), methodological (care-infrastructure), and practical (actually supporting under-represented artists with material resources).

In 2026, Zhang’s plans for curatorial work and ArtFlow Studio continue to promote Asian artists, especially emerging women artists, with solo shows around the UK and Europe. Also, their upcoming transnational Asian group exhibition, with artists from China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia, promises to test whether Zhang's infrastructure of care can be applied in a bigger context and to other cities in Europe. Even though it may seem like an ambiguous leap, the curator continuously shows a genuine and successful body of work that surpasses labels and cultures, building cross-cultural networks and supporting several artists throughout her career.

But the biggest question regarding Zhang’s practice is not about her capacity to amplify reach and support more artists; it's about how her model of curatorial care might be applied to other institutions. What if curator job descriptions included long-term support, post-exhibition coordination, and artist network building with other institutions as main responsibilities rather than optional extras? Zhang, independent practice at 27, is showing us that this type of infrastructural care is possible and sustainable, becoming an inspiration for other curators and artists. The question is not if Zhang's methodology works; it is whether the art world is ready to value it.

Find out more about the curator here and read a recent interview with us here.

Cover image:

404 Not Found Exhibition.

All images courtesy of Hongqian Zhang.