Convivial Gathering at Platform Greeting the Spring inaugurates the educational program, long-term artist residency, and sharing of diverse intellectual and sensual knowledges of How to Keep a Place Alive? (2026-2030), a curatorial inquiry initiated by Biljana Ciric and Giulia Menegale. The inquiry brings together cultural practitioners and institutions to rethink how places are cared for and sustained through cultural work. It will be launched with the above activities at ChunYangTai Arts and Cultural Centre in the village of Langtou, on the northern outskirts of Guangzhou, in September 2026, marking the beginning of a multi-year platform for artistic research, collective learning, and place-based cultural practices.

Structured around workshops, discussions, collective activities, and public sharings, Convivial Gathering’s educational program explores how practices such as farming, cooking, seed exchange, and the stewardship of land can be understood as artistic and cultural production that will help us transition towards kin-centric worldview. The 2026 mentors for the program include Soil of Cultures (collective of artists, cultural workers, and community organizing advocating for people's food sovereignty in Aotearoa New Zealand), Stéphane V. Bottéro (artist and researcher working at the intersection of social practice, installation, writing, and gardening), Dharmendra Prasad (artist and community organizer, founder of Harvest School, Buxar, India), Lo Lai Lai Natalie (artist interested in food, farming, plant intelligence and fermentation, based in Hong Kong), Nikita Yingqian Cai (Adjunct Curator for Asia-Pacific, Centre Pompidou), Maghras (A Farm for Experimentation Centered on the Al Ahsa region, Saudi Arabia), among others.

Invited art practitioners will arrive at the ChunYangTai a month before the educational program begins to work on site-specific artistic commissions, engaging with the place through a durational relationship. As part of the program, an open-air cinema series is dedicated to themes of land, resilience, and collective struggle. The educational program is open to curators, cultural practitioners, artists, and researchers of all ages and backgrounds.

Participation is free of charge. Participants are expected to attend the full duration of the program and to cover their own travel and food costs for the program. Affordable accommodation is available at Gengxue+, a multifunctional Education Centre which integrates a variety of learning and living facilities and scenarios. The program will be conducted primarily in English.

How to apply
Applications should include the following items as a single Word or PDF document (Max. 20MB) , sent by email to chunyangtailangchuanculture.cn with the subject line: Educational Program 2026

–CV/Portfolio. For video or large files, please provide a download link.
–Letter of Interest (Max. 300 words). Please answer the question “What do you love too much to lose?”.
–Max. two examples of images, texts, artworks, or practices beyond art that inspired you or challenged your knowledge structure.

Please name your application document using the following format: [Last Name]_Educational_program2026. (For example: Smith_Educational_program2026).

For other queries, please send to the following email address: chunyangtailangchuanculture.cn. For more information, please visit the Residency section on the ChunYangTai official website.