Friday Late: To Ebb is To Flow

Through sound experiences, installations, textile sculptures and explorations of nature, they transform spaces, bodies and textures, pushing back against familiar, commercialised images of ESEA culture. Step into immersive experiences that open up new ways of understanding gender expression, belonging and change. 

All events are free, and places are designated on a first-come, first-served basis unless stated otherwise. Filming and photography will take place at this event. If you have any access requirements, please let us know in advance by emailing accessibility@vam.ac.uk 

Please note if the V&A or any of the activations reaches capacity, we will allow access on a one-in, one-out basis.

A 

DJ Set by Miamor
The Grand Entrance, Cromwell Road 

Join DJ Miamor in her eclectic set paying tribute to her Filipino heritage, R&B and Soul. Returning from a music tour in Asia, the South Londoner’s music draws influences from Southeast and East Asian music. 

@dj.miamor   

B 

势声 · Shìshēng — As Sound Splashes 

The Raphael Cartoons, Room 48a 

Performances at 19:50, 20:50 

Duration: 30 minutes 

Inspired by Chinese spiritual traditions, artist Zhuyang Liu’s new performance weaves ancient sonic intuition, resonance and silence into a collective, meditative experience. Experience how Chinese instruments, electronics and voice activate the score live, interacting with shifting sounds of our movement. Liu will be joined on stage by Lil Soap to disrupt mainstream perception of sound, spaces and bodies in Chinese culture. Adapted from The Sound of Hexagram co-developed with Bianco Li.   

@zhuyangleiu  

@soap_dynastea 

C 

Unbound Xiaomei: Decolonising Bodies through Wild Zine Making 

The John Lyons Community Gallery, Learning Centre 

Drop-in from 18:30 – 21:00 

Please be aware the images may contain depictions of nudity  

Re-make “Xiaomei,” a stereotyped female figure, through collage, textiles and zine-making. Inspired by ESEA cultures, this workshop invites you to imagine new bodies beyond the gaze, create your own unbound zine, and contribute to a collective artwork to be developed throughout the night. 

@oyester 

D 

Family Tree 

Sculpture, Room 25 

Explore the intricacies of family connection through ecology and technology. Using fallen leaves and motifs native to London and Kuala Lumpur, artist Alya Hatta creates hybrid plants from donated fabrics. These plant clusters mirror transnational family networks, with WhatsApp voice memos revealing how distance and women’s roles shape intergenerational communication across continents. 

@alyahatta 

E 

Curator’s Tour  

China, Room 44 

19:15, 20:30 

Duration: 25 minutes 

Please note the tours have a limited capacity. Sign up from 18:15 to 19:00 at the China gallery. 

Join curator Xiaoxin Li for a guided tour of Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts, to explore the female voices expressed in textile, ceramics, glass and more. The display illustrates how craft has been reimagined as a medium for artistic expression in China. 

F 

The Glass Essays 

The Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre, Level 2 

19:30, 20:30 

Duration: 30 minutes  

The film will be played on loop between performances. 

Please be aware that there may be flashing flights  

Experience the mourning language of southern China through artist River Yuhao Cao’s performative lecture and film The Glass Essays, referencing mobile funeral stage trucks in his hometown. Through a queer lens, lamentation and tremor are reframed as fluid forces and rituals. The work is an invitation to share collective memories, confront the past and its ghosts.  

@rivercao 

G  

Macho Mystic Meltdown Chapter 2: Monster; She Wrote  

Tapestries, Room 94, Level 2  

Film on loop from 18:30 – 21:30 

Duration: 13 minutes  

Encounter artist Natasha Tontey’s alternative vision of the 1950s Permesta rebellion in Indonesia through a rare female fighter’s ritualistic, indigenous practice at the front line of the political movement. By centering a woman within a male-dominated struggle, the video foregrounds gendered dimensions of rebellion, state violence, and militarised heroism that still shape the Minahasha community in Indonesia today.  

@krazykosmickid 

@hannefkensfoundation 

H 

With Love. From an Invader  

Theatre & Performance, Room 103, Level 2 

Two-channel film on loop from 18:30 – 21:30 

Duration: 37 minutes  

Artist Yan Wang Preston photographed a heart-shaped rhododendron ponticum at a lunar-like, post-mining site in Lancashire, recording ambient sound and wildlife from 2020 to 2021. The installation reclaims the thriving plant’s central role in the local ecology, challenging its label as ‘non-native invasive’ in conservation. Reflecting on her identity as an immigrant, the work is a love letter to land, and non-native people. British rhododendrons are introduced plants from Europe and Asia. Sound composition by Prof Monty Adkins. 

@yanwangpreston 

I 

Diaspora Birds 

Prince Consort Gallery, Room 110 

Drop-in from 18:30 – 21:30 

Please be aware the images contain depictions of nudity 

Through artist Luo Yang’s photographs, be immersed in stories of displacement and emotional conflicts gathered from Asian diaspora communities. The artist reveals complex challenges and resilience arising from identity struggles, integration into Western social systems and difficulties of returning to the homelands. Yang invites us to reflect on the importance of respect and inclusivity towards immigrants of different cultural backgrounds - from refugees, orphans adopted into Europe, students, LGBTQ+ individuals and so on. 

@luoyangggg 

 

J 

Photography Centre, Room 98, The Kusuma Gallery 

Drop in from 18:30 – 21:30 

Can AI learn from pre-modern Chinese women and create its own secret language? Nüshu (女书), or “Women’s Script,” is a secret language created by women in pre-modern China, who were excluded from formal education. Exploring language formation in a non-Western, feminist context, artist Yuqian Sun trains AI agents to imitate illiterate women and question linguistic authorities. Interact with this alternative language system that evolves with the environment and audience feedback. The work won the Lumen Prize in 2024. 

@cheesetalk1997 

K 

Panel Discussion: Beyond the Gaze  

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 64b, The Simon Sainsbury Gallery 

20:00 

Duration: 45 minutes  

How can we subvert exoticized gender stereotypes in the globalized world? Join artists Alya Hatta, Haffendi Anuar and Hannah Lim in sharing how they deconstruct commodified ESEA symbols and resist the colonial, patriarchal gaze through their multi-disciplinary practices rooted in ESEA culture and lived experience in the UK. Explore how they create personal narratives and navigate the fluidity of gender roles. Moderated by V&A curator Carrie Chan. 

@alyahatta 

@haffendi 

@__hannahlim__