Francesca Leiper

It’s 22 February, 2020, and Xuanwu Lake has just reopened to the public after a long spell of closure in attempts to control the spread of the novel coronavirus. I open up Baidu Maps to suss out the best...

The inspiration for this month’s column was served up to me on a plate; eight slabs of polished black and white marble. Except the edible kind of marble, the kind made from taro; slightly sweet with a gentle wobble...

As the thermals come out and the season of sleeping bag jackets sets in, it calls for indoor activities. A small but highly accessible exhibition at the Nanjing Museum should fit the bill nicely. “Lofty Sublimity” (don’t judge by...

Twenty days was all they had between receiving the order and presenting an initial proposal. That’s not all that long when you’ve just been asked to design the Jiangsu float that will be a part of the Tiananmen parade...

The largest exhibition of Chinese art of all time was not, as one might expect, held in China. Nor was it a recent affair. Beginning on 28 November, 1935, the Royal Academy in London held a monumental exhibition displaying over...

Good logos are eye-catching and memorable. Really good logos are eye-catching, memorable and clever. In a country where the symbols of language are much like logos themselves, pictorial signifiers of meaning, we can expect some pretty top-notch stuff. But...

While museums around the world are banning the use of selfie sticks, a new kind of exhibition space is making them practically a necessity. I’m talking about the so called “selfie museum”. Why not “dive into our world of wonder”...

In 1987, Huang Yongping plonked one copy of “The History of Chinese Painting” and one of “The History of Modern Western Art” into the washing machine for 2 minutes. The result: a pile of papery mush on top of...