Aims and Ambitions

The Foundation was set up in 2008. Its aims are to help ensure that the intense global interest in contemporary Chinese art and culture has a sustainable future, and to help increase two–way knowledge and understanding between China and the rest of the world, in the arena of art and culture.

The impulse behind the creation of the Foundation in early 2000s was the common recognition that then when China was in its transformation phase into one of the most important players in the global economy, there was unprecedented interest in Chinese culture and traditions from the West and other parts of the world. The Foundation’s purpose was to channel this through dialogues about the arts, which it considers to be a soft power in bridging cultural understanding between nations and people, so that countries, particularly in the Western world, could engage with the artists, thinkers and academics who were emerging within China with fresh, contemporary ideas, which were also inspired its 4000 plus years old traditions and philosophy.

Now, this cross-pollination of cultures between East and West becomes even more urgent as we face increasing geopolitical tensions worldwide. There is a lot of misunderstanding and skepticism between East and West, particularly when we look at current US-China relations. The Foundation’s original purpose has become even more important today to mitigate these misconceptions that could potentially drive a wedge between the Western world and Eastern cultures. As the Foundation believes that cultural dialogues represent a soft power that transcends politics, borders and differences, it will endeavour to continue building bridges between world powers of East and West through the unifying powers of art and culture to foster a deeper human understanding between nations.

In light of this situation, the Foundation wishes to:

• Help nurture within China, Europe and the US, and especially within the contemporary cultural community – understood in its widest sense to include practitioners, educators, critics and museum professionals – knowledge about the history of Chinese traditions of art and culture
• Internationalise knowledge, to ensure that the West has opportunities to understand the extraordinary and complex history of Chinese culture; and that China has access and understanding of the historical knowledge as well as the contemporary culture of the West
• Provide a forum in which Western and Chinese museum professionals can interrogate issues of shared concerns and develop mutual understandings, in regular, informal settings
• Identify and help to nurture the valuable skillset which will be needed to sustain museums and educational institutions, both in the West and in China, in a rapidly changing and increasingly globalised world
• Provide opportunities for practising artists in all fields, in both China and the West, to explore each other’s cultures and traditions