Journey
From Cultural Practitioner to Research-Driven Educator
I studied at Tsinghua University, where my undergraduate thesis explored how commercial art galleries supported the rise of Chinese contemporary art in the early 2000s, during the post-socialist transition as China’s art world became increasingly globalized and market-driven. This research deepened my understanding of cultural production in transitional societies and revealed a structural gap: international artists visiting China lacked meaningful access to communities, resources, and public platforms.
After graduation, I became one of the youngest faculty members in my department, teaching art history to undergraduate students at Dalian University of Technology. My time in the classroom was equally eye-opening—it showed me how limited the exposure to global artistic dialogue was, even within academic institutions. Together, these experiences—both in research and in teaching—made it clear to me that, at the time, China had no welcoming infrastructure for international artists. That realization became the starting point for what I would soon build next.
In 2005, I co-founded the Beijing Studio Center, transforming a modest studio in Suojia Village into a thriving international artist residency. At the time, I was still searching for a model that combined cultural meaning with sustainable structure—and building this platform became my way of answering that question.
I didn’t start with a grand vision—just a deep desire to support artists, especially those navigating unfamiliar ground in China. As more artists joined, the project grew organically across multiple campuses and eventually became a hub of cultural exchange. I met people from every corner of the world; I learned how to manage teams, navigate government relations, and fundraise under real-world pressure. I wasn’t just curating programs—I was shaping systems.
That experience became a turning point. It was through Beijing Studio Center that I began to see myself not just as an organizer or cultural worker, but as a creative entrepreneur. I served on the board of Res Artis and became the only non-governmental Chinese founding partner of World Event Young Artists, the official Cultural Olympiad project of the 2012 London Olympics. These moments made me realize that supporting others could also be a form of authorship—and that building platforms could be its own kind of art.
featured in Hyperallergic
The visibility of my work at the Beijing Studio Center—particularly in adaptive reuse and cultural infrastructure building—led to an invitation to join the Inside-Out Art Museum as Director of International Programs. Located in a tech-heavy district on Beijing’s urban fringe, the museum had just reclaimed an abandoned factory as its new home. I helped lead a placemaking initiative that transformed the site into a cultural hub, featuring a contemporary art museum and public theater.
This project marked a turning point: I began to understand how cultural institutions can act as agents of urban regeneration, bridging the gap between public planning, civic identity, and artistic engagement.
After the 2008 financial crisis, I began to notice a shift. International artists were no longer the only ones seeking dialogue—Chinese artists, too, were looking outward, eager for global engagement. Having previously built a platform for inbound exchange, I felt compelled to respond to this new moment.
I co-founded China Arts Link in New York, originally as a residency program mirroring the Beijing Studio Center. But over time—and especially after completing my MBA—I began to think beyond the boundaries of the art world. I realized that art could be a starting point, but not the endpoint. I had stepped out of the “art bubble” and into a broader terrain where cultural exchange intersected with policy, business, and global strategy.
Expanding Beyond the Arts: Business, Innovation, and Systems Thinking
To gain cross-sector experience and build a more strategic foundation for my creative work, I pursued my MBA at Babson College, the No.1 school for entrepreneurship in the U.S. for over 28 consecutive years.
At Babson, I intentionally stepped beyond the arts world to explore new frameworks in business strategy, IT systems, and innovation management. During this time, I served as an Innovation Project Manager at Blue Cross Blue Shield, where I worked on both internal and external innovation initiatives—ranging from corporate systems design to cross-functional problem solving.
This experience gave me the tools to bridge creative practice with enterprise-scale thinking, and continues to shape how I approach cultural systems, audience engagement, and infrastructure design.
In 2018, I co-founded the College Art Summit with Dr. Karen Keifer-Boyd—an art education scholar, my mentor, and an extraordinary collaborator. At the time, I had just completed my MBA and was inspired by the model of the U.S.-China Health Summit. I began to imagine what an arts-based counterpart might look like: not just exhibitions or residencies, but a structured space where students, faculty, and artists from China and the U.S. could engage in real, thematic dialogue.
Working hand-in-hand with Karen, we curated every detail of the summit. We grouped speakers in intentional panels of four, ensuring each session offered balanced, interdisciplinary exchange. We collaborated with campus libraries to host feminist art workshops and with university marketing teams to co-publish full-color catalogues that documented the conversations.
These moments were not just about organizing events; they were about building community and shared authorship.
Through this process, I was introduced to feminist thought and became increasingly aware of the politics of inclusion, voice, and visibility—especially in academic and cultural contexts. Karen didn’t just help me build the summit; she expanded my world.
From 2018 to 2024, we hosted four summits—two in-person and two hybrid—in close partnership with Penn State and, later, Beijing Institute of Graphic Communication. Each one taught me that the most powerful platforms begin in friendship, trust, and a shared desire to reshape systems from within.
2019 Summit, exhibition Opening @ Zolar Gallery of Penn State
Between 2022 and 2023, I held leadership roles at two institutions that shaped my structural understanding of the arts and entrepreneurship. At moCa Cleveland, I led development efforts across individual, foundation, and government support, aligning fundraising with institutional visioning and audience strategy. At Case Western Reserve University, I managed major gift development for the Weatherhead School of Management—where I was introduced to the Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) model. That exposure directly influenced my thinking around creative legacy transfer, cultural incubators, and the structural challenges creative businesses face when navigating succession.
Returning to Research: A Practice-Grounded Doctoral Journey
Currently, I am pursuing a Ph.D. at The Ohio State University in Arts Administration, Education, and Policy, where my research focuses on the intersection of creative entrepreneurship, cultural policy, and institutional innovation.
My doctoral work builds on years of real-world practice, with current projects exploring audience intelligence systems, infrastructure for creative manufacturing, and cross-sector support models for artist-led initiatives.
This research is both reflective and forward-looking—aimed at informing how institutions, funders, and policymakers can better support cultural work in a post-industrial, data-driven era. My long-term goal is to bridge research and leadership, developing systems that empower creative communities through strategy, equity, and design.