{"id":566503,"date":"2025-11-13T00:13:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566503\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T00:13:18","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T00:13:18","slug":"how-2-new-asian-and-african-focused-cultural-institutions-are-decolonising-art-in-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/566503\/","title":{"rendered":"How 2 new Asian and African-focused cultural institutions are decolonising art in London"},"content":{"rendered":"<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Last month, the Chinese art collector and patron Yan Du opened a non-profit art space in a magnificent Grade I listed building in Bedford Square, the 18th-century heart of London\u2019s Bloomsbury district.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">She has called it YDP \u2013 Yan Du Projects. Naming it after herself was \u201cjust a joke\u201d, she said at the press preview.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">But she also said that YDP and Asymmetry, her other non-profit project \u2013 launched in 2020 in London to support a new generation of Chinese and Sinophone curators \u2013 are \u201cguided by the same spirit: myself\u201d. That spirit wants to ensure Asian artists claim their place on the global arts scene.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">In the same week, in a Grade II listed building about 10 minutes\u2019 walk from YDP, Lina Lazaar opened an arts institution called Ibraaz.<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Like YDP, it is a UK-registered charity that describes itself as \u201ca brave space for art, culture, and ideas from the Global Majority\u201d. It, too, is the further amplification of an original concept.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"YDP is in a listed building in Bedford Square, in the Bloomsbury district in London, the UK. Photo: Jooney Woodward\" data-qa=\"BaseImage-handleRenderImage-StyledImage\" class=\"e1gf69pb2 css-6ikqhs e445x7d0\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/abf832bc-cbed-46df-ae15-fa8221143704_02cc189e.jpg\" title=\"YDP is in a listed building in Bedford Square, in the Bloomsbury district in London, the UK. Photo: Jooney Woodward\"\/>YDP is in a listed building in Bedford Square, in the Bloomsbury district in London, the UK. Photo: Jooney Woodward<\/p>\n<p datatype=\"p\" data-qa=\"Component-Component\" class=\"e8zc9q40 css-1c6uqr6 ec74h0k1\">Lazaar is the president of the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, which was set up by her Tunisian-Swiss father in 2005, and Ibraaz, which means \u201cto shine a light on\u201d in Arabic, grew out of the 2011 Arab spring protests as an online platform for visual culture from the Middle East and North Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, the Chinese art collector and patron Yan Du opened a non-profit art space in a magnificent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[20211,180068,180067,180069,180072,35742,748,18097,180070,180066,393,110598,4884,3749,101898,257,16,15,180071],"class_list":{"0":"post-566503","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-aaa","9":"tag-arab-spring-protests","10":"tag-asymmetry","11":"tag-beau-architects","12":"tag-bedford-square","13":"tag-bloomsbury","14":"tag-britain","15":"tag-british-museum","16":"tag-china-sea","17":"tag-decolonising-arts-institute","18":"tag-england","19":"tag-frieze-london","20":"tag-great-britain","21":"tag-hong-kong","22":"tag-ibraaz","23":"tag-london","24":"tag-uk","25":"tag-united-kingdom","26":"tag-yan-du"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115539503339593677","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}