Editor Wannabes’ Club

The Editor Wannabes’ Club is a public programme series developed by Asymmetry in collaboration with Qilu Criticism 歧路批评. It reflects on – and works through – the editorial practices that at once shape and are shaped by contemporary art discourse.

Taking Qilu Criticism’s first five years as a point of departure, the series approaches the editorial as both a professional process of textual production and a relational practice: creating, publishing, reading, translating, supporting and caring for the writing and thoughts of others. At its core is a question recurring in Qilu’s work: what sustains editorial practice? The two workshops, led by Qilu, focused on fatigue, dissatisfaction and doubt – three feelings that pervade the everyday experience of editorial work yet are rarely discussed. The title ‘Editor Wannabes’ playfully acknowledges the curiosity, experimentation and uncertainty shared by anyone engaged in editing.

Through the workshops, Qilu and the participants collectively developed the Lexicon of Editor Wannabes, a living glossary of the questions, observations and experiences around editorial work, shared publicly as a work in progress.

Programme

• Workshop I: Wannabe Editorial Wannabes – 11 March 2026, Asymmetry HQ (open call)
• Workshop II: Editorial Wannabes – 21 March 2026, Asymmetry HQ (closed-door, with experienced editors)
• Co-working session – April 2026, further developing the lexicon
• Annotated Editing: Qilu Criticism and the Lexicon of Editor Wannabes – 25 June 2026, Asymmetry HQ. A sharing by Qilu’s three editors, Cindy Ziyun Huang, Weitian Liu and Nie Xiaoyi, on five years as a Chinese online platform for contemporary art criticism, followed by performative readings from the Lexicon and a co-editing session.