Founded in 2018, Curatorial Practices in Asia (CPA) is a platform dedicated to shaping the narrative and charting the future course of curatorial practices in and through Asia and the Asian Diaspora. Titled "A Retreat for the Retreated,” the 2026 edition collaborated with “Solitude: Loneliness and Freedom,” a regional project of the Goethe-Institutes in East and Central Asia. The project holds the premise that loneliness, solitude, and self-imposed withdrawal are social phenomena that increasingly characterize our present day and are salient in the artistic community as well. The project approaches this multi-layered complex of themes through a transnational, multi-directional and discursive-artistic approach that aims to make also non-Western modes of perception and discourses visible.

The three-day retreat is organised with the Goethe-Institut for those who have retreated to the sprawling edge of the networks and exist in liminal spaces. It is bringing together thirteen alternative art spaces and artist collectives working across disciplines in the field of visual culture and operating at the periphery of the so-called art centres in China. These dispersed collectives and their extensive network operate without necessarily having a physical space yet are locally rooted to penetrate the community and form solidarity beyond the constraints of physical and geographical boundaries.

These spaces might work in dispersed regions in solitude in terms of locality, but they are not necessarily lonely and have the freedom to choose what they want to write, what they want to engage in, and what they want to produce. By retreating together, new possibilities for collaboration and support networks would hopefully be envisioned.

Participating collectives