[Commlist] 4th CCVA PhD Forum Call for Paper

The 4th CCVA PhD Forum
Call for Paper

Date: 10th July 2026
Venue: School of Art, Birmingham City University, UK (in-person only)

Over the past nearly two decades, the Centre for Chinese Visual Arts 
(CCVA) at Birmingham City University has been dedicated to advancing new 
understandings and perspectives on Chinese contemporary art, design, and 
visual culture through interdisciplinary practices and theoretical 
inquiry. Starting from September 2025, CCVA is officially rebranded as 
the Centre for Contemporary Visual Arts Asia (CCVA Asia), expanding its 
research scope from China to encompass East and Southeast Asia while 
maintaining a sustained focus on core issues in Chinese visual culture.

As an annual parallel event to the long-standing CCVA Annual Conference, 
the PhD Forum was inaugurated in 2023 and has successfully held three 
editions annually. It has attracted a large number of PhD students and 
those who are newly awarded with doctorates from universities worldwide, 
from China, Europe and the UK. Unlike our themed annual conference, the 
PhD Forum breaks down disciplinary and geographical barriers to form a 
diverse exchange model of ‘theoretical discussion + practical cases’, 
with its core values manifested in three key aspects: it deepens 
research on Chinese contemporary visual culture by covering pivotal 
areas such as artistic practices in the digital age, cultural identity 
and memory, art ecology and industry, artistic expression of social 
issues, and interactions between education and policies; it builds an 
interdisciplinary dialogue platform that brings together researchers 
from art theory, media communication, folklore studies, gender studies, 
digital technology, and other fields; and it supports the academic 
growth of young scholars by providing a unique space for presenting 
research outcomes, exchanging ideas, and enhancing professional skills 
through panel discussions and expert feedback.

As the first academic event after the CCVA rebranding, the 4th PhD Forum 
will continue its tradition of openness and inclusiveness while further 
expanding its research boundaries: on one hand, it will sustain in-depth 
exploration of Chinese contemporary visual culture by inheriting the 
core academic achievements of the previous three forums, and on the 
other hand, it will extensively embrace research findings on 
contemporary art, design, media, and visual culture in East and 
Southeast Asia, covering diverse topics such as regional cultural 
inheritance and innovation, artistic expression amid social 
transformation, and cross-regional cultural exchange.
We embrace ‘Asia’ as both a research method and a core focus, aiming to 
break the single-country research framework, advance the global academic 
community’s comprehensive understanding of contemporary visual culture 
in China, as well as in East and Southeast Asia, and construct a more 
extensive and in-depth international exchange platform for young scholars.

Presentations should be no longer than 20 minutes. Forum fee: £40. 
Please note that this is an in-person only event.

To apply, please include all the following information in one file and 
send it to:
(Yining.He /at/ mail.bcu.ac.uk)
and copy to (ccva /at/ bcu.ac.uk)

The email subject should be ‘CCVA PhD Forum 4’, and the application 
deadline is 31 March 2026.

Information to be included in the application file:
1) Name
2) Email address
3) University and Department
4) PhD topic
5) PhD start year
6) Short biography (not extending 100 words)
7) Abstract (not extending 300 words)

Submitted proposals will be reviewed by CCVA PhD Forum Panel. Successful 
proposals will be notified within two weeks after the deadline.

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