About
Dr Nie Xiaoyi is a curator, researcher and writer, as well as an editor and teacher. She teaches on the Curating Contemporary Art programme at the Royal College of Art. Her doctoral research, From Curating to Cedong (Instigating), revisits case studies in cross-cultural contexts to trace how 'curating' emerged and was reinvented in China from the 1990s onwards. This research also led her to explore the ecologies formed by institutions, self-organised initiatives and individual practitioners inside and outside the art system: how practitioners are creating new forms of life and art, what kinds of future institutions and forms of organisation the present state of the world and the circumstances of individual lives call for, and what alternative histories and practices can offer.
For her, editing, publishing, starting discussions, organising parties and maintaining spaces, among other things, are all cedong (instigating) and curatorial practices. Since 2021, she has worked with Liu Weitian and Cindy Ziyun Huang under the framework of Qilu Criticism, editing articles, publishing, producing podcasts and setting up projects. In 2025, she founded a mapping studio with You Yiyi and Peng Haodong and launched Annotated Shanghai, which enriches and archives the art geography of a particular time and place through mapping and annotating. In the past two years, she has curated the exhibitions Zheng Que: Factory Girl at the Art Museum of Pond Loach and Who Am I: Bios of Art Practitioners with students of the Free Art Studio at China Academy of Art, and co-organised the second edition of Day & Night, a trip to her hometown, Zibo.
Although she calls herself a 'contemporary art survivor' (also the name of her Substack), she has also benefited from the art system. She was a De Ying Foundation Curatorial Fellow in the programme's second cohort (2024–25). From 2022 to 2024, she was senior editor at ArtReview's Chinese edition and at LEAP. In 2022, she took part as a researcher in 'Three Contested Sites—The Worldly Fables of the Long 1990s', a project by Guangdong Times Museum (Guangzhou) and Times Art Center Berlin. In 2020, she was selected as an Emerging Art Writer by AICA-UK (the International Association of Art Critics, UK). She has also contributed to curatorial projects at OCAT Institute (Beijing), Gasworks (London) and the Jimei × Arles International Photo Festival (Xiamen). She has shared her research and led workshops at Para Site (Hong Kong), Osf (Guangzhou), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Institute of International Visual Arts (London), China Academy of Art, the Royal Geographical Society, Freie Universität Berlin, the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts and OCAT Shenzhen. Beyond the platforms where she has worked as an editor, her academic papers, art criticism and essays have appeared in Yishu, the Contemporary Chinese Art Yearbook, the Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art and Engage, among others.
聂小依博士是一位策展人、研究者、写作者，同时也是编辑与教师。她任教于英国皇家艺术学院当代艺术策展系。她的博士研究《从策展到策动》通过重访跨文化语境的个案梳理了“策展”自1990年代以来在中国的出现和再发明过程，这一研究也引发了她对艺术系统内外机构、自我组织、个体创作者组成的生态的探索：创作者正如何创造新的生活和艺术形态，当下世界状态与个体生命境遇呼唤着何种未来的机构与组织形式，替代性的历史与实践可以带来何种启发。
对她而言，编辑、出版、发起讨论、组织派对、维护空间等等都是“策展-策动”实践：2021年至今，她与刘伟田、黄梓耘以《歧路批评》为框架，编辑文章、出版、制作播客、设立项目。2025年，她与游伊一、彭浩东成立制图室、发起了“Annotated Shanghai 上海艺术天书”，以制图与注释丰富并存档特定时空中的艺术地理。这两年，她策划了泥鳅美术馆“郑确：厂妹”展览，和中国美术学院自由艺术工作室的同学们策划了“我是谁：艺术实践者的简介”，并共同组织了第二届“日游夜谈”，一次到她的故乡淄博的旅行。
虽然自称“当代艺术幸存者”（她的 Substack 就叫这个名字），但她也是艺术系统的受益者：她是2024—25年第二届德英策展学者；2022至2024年，她曾任 ArtReview 中文版、LEAP（《艺术界》）资深编辑；2022年，她作为研究员参与广东时代美术馆和时代艺术中心（柏林）的项目“三个争议的场域——漫长的九十年代及其当世寓言”；2020年，她获选国际艺术评论协会（英国）的新兴艺术写作者。此外，她曾参与 OCAT 研究中心（北京）、Gasworks（伦敦）、集美·阿尔勒国际摄影季（厦门）等机构的项目策划。她曾在 Para Site（香港）、前台（广州）、香港中文大学、Institute of International Visual Arts（伦敦）、中国美术学院、英国皇家地理学会、柏林自由大学、Centre for Chinese Visual Arts、OCAT 深圳等机构分享研究、带领工作坊。在她担任编辑的平台之外，她的学术论文、艺术批评与散文，亦可见于《Yishu》《中国当代艺术年鉴》《Journal of Contemporary Chinese Art》《Engage》等。