Sian Fan
Liangmao Hat (1950-1980) from the V&A collections, FE.186-1995, courtesy of V&A East.
Sian Fan in the fellowship programme will be exploring her dual heritage, half Chinese and British, and meditating on what it means to exist in between worlds. Responding to the theme “the Stories of Clothes”, Sian Fan’s fellowship project stems from her curiosity to discover her own origin, and research her familial journey from Northen China to the New Territories of Hong Kong and eventually to the UK, as an opportunity to undertake new research that draws from objects, stories and places to craft new, fictional and fantastical narratives, and to create speculative stories.
Sian Fan in the fellowship programme will be exploring her dual heritage, half Chinese and British, and meditating on what it means to exist in between worlds. Responding to the theme “the Stories of Clothes”, Sian Fan’s fellowship project stems from her curiosity to discover her own origin, and research her familial journey from Northen China to the New Territories of Hong Kong and eventually to the UK, as an opportunity to undertake new research that draws from objects, stories and places to craft new, fictional and fantastical narratives, and to create speculative stories.
- 2025
- Grantee: Sian Fan
Sian Fan is an interdisciplinary artist and has exhibited internationally with institutions including Tate Modern, Mutek Barcelona, Kunsthal Rotterdam, and FACT Liverpool, as well as producing work with Channel 4, the BBC and Meta. Recent projects include a new commission for the major exhibition CUTE at Somerset House, a motion capture performance for Digital Bodies Festival and a three-screen videogame installation for Art Exchange. Her work combines movement, the body and technology to explore embodiment, identity and human experience. This manifests as a meshing of the physical and the virtual, taking form as sculpture, costume, performance, animation, installation, and new media.
Design Trust Fellowship at V&A East awards creative practitioners funding to engage in research at V&A East Storehouse, fieldwork in Hong Kong, the Greater Bay Area and China where appropriate, and to produce a new creative work, which will be displayed at V&A East for a six-month duration. The inaugural V&A East Design Trust Fellowship will begin in Autumn 2025, culminating in a commissioned work on display in Autumn 2026 through Spring 2027.