SOAS Gallery video art series

A London university gallery is turning a video art exhibition into six separate free events, so you do not have to pay for a major show or guess your way through difficult work to see it. The series around “In-/Visible Spectrums: Contemporary Video Art from the Sinosphere” runs from April 16 to June 20, 2026 at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. (soas.ac.uk) The exhibition is not just a room of screens. The School of Oriental and African Studies says it is paired with screenings, panel discussions, and a final roundtable, all built to explain how the works were made and how they are read across cultural boundaries. (soas.ac.uk) The key word here is “Sinosphere,” which means the show is not limited to artists from mainland China. The university describes it as contemporary video art from Sinophone artists, a wider field tied to Chinese-language worlds that includes places like Hong Kong and artists working across different locations. (soas.ac.uk) That wider map shows up in the program. One event on May 28, 2026 focuses on video art, photography, and performance by artists from Hong Kong, with Siu Wai Hang and Yim Sui Fong in conversation with curator and scholar Paul Gladston. (soas.ac.uk) Another session on May 14, 2026 centers queer video art in mainland China, with artist Sheng Jinghao joined by Professor Hongwei Bao and Professor Paul Gladston. Instead of treating the exhibition as a single theme, the program breaks it into distinct political and aesthetic strands. (soas.ac.uk) The first event, on April 16, 2026, looks at “Institutional Critiques by Chinese Artists in London,” with Yique and Xu Ziyi. A second event on April 30, 2026 follows with “Humour as a Mode of Criticism in Chinese Video Art,” which shows the series is using talks to give viewers an entry point before or after they see the works. (unsw.edu.au, soas.ac.uk) The last two dates push even further from the standard museum talk format. On June 18, 2026, artist Kiki Tianqi Yu discusses “The Body and Classical Chinese Aesthetics,” and on June 20, 2026, the series ends with a plenary roundtable on how contemporary video art from the Sinosphere should be interpreted. (soas.ac.uk, soas.ac.uk) All six events are listed as free admission. On Eventbrite, the organizer page shows the run from April 16 through June 20, with each session carrying a zero-price ticket, which lowers the usual barrier around gallery programming in central London. (eventbrite.com) The gallery itself says its broader mission is to present contemporary art from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East and to stay open and accessible to the widest number of visitors. This series fits that mission in a very literal way: free entry, named artists, fixed dates, and a built-in guide for people who do not already follow contemporary Chinese-language video art. (soas.ac.uk)