October 4, 2025
London WC1B 3JA
UK
Founded by arts philanthropist Yan Du, YDP is a new contemporary art project space dedicated to supporting artists of diverse Asian backgrounds and informed by different diasporic experiences. Located on Bedford Square, central London, it will open on October 4, 2025.
The inaugural exhibition, Duan Jianyu: Yúqiáo, will present a new series of works across three floors. Concurrently, YDP will unveil new site-specific commissions by Christine Sun Kim and Danh Vo, which will feature permanently in its space. This Autumn, YDP will also kickstart its artist residency programme with Harit Srikhao.
YDP will host two to three exhibitions per year, offered alongside bespoke artist residencies as well as more experimental programming, durational performances, film screenings, talks and more. Devised in close conversation with artists, YDP’s programme will remain varied, flexible and responsive to the contemporary arts landscape, providing a space for exploration, research and innovation.
Duan Jianyu: Yúqiáo
October 4–December 24, 2025
Duan Jianyu (b.1970, Zhengzhou; lives in Guangzhou) is celebrated for her deeply narrative painterly practice that explores the layered complexities of contemporary life. Marking her first major solo show in the UK in over a decade, Duan Jianyu: Yúqiáo will present a new body of work comprising 20 paintings and a group of sculptures from the artist’s eponymous series. A selection of earlier works and archival materials will also be on display, offering a broader view of Duan’s practice.
The exhibition is titled after a recurring motif in Chinese literati painting and philosophy since the eleventh century, yúqiáo, a term that translates to ‘the fisherman and the woodcutter’. Traditionally imagined as reclusive figures dwelling along rivers and foothills, this duo observes and reflects on the human condition from a contemplative distance, offering a holistic cosmology that frames time, nature and history with a transcendent, non-binary perspective. In her new series, Duan reinterprets this motif, shifting focus from its lofty symbolism to its overlooked mundanity and narrative potential. Her rural and folkloric figures wander from pastoral landscapes to modern urban environments, inviting reflection on the quiet wisdom embedded in daily experience amid a fractured global reality.
Duan Jianyu: Yúqiáo is curated by Yang Zi, a Beijing-based curator invited by the artist, in collaboration with YDP. The exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue co-published by YDP and Mousse Publishing.
Permanent commissions: Christine Sun Kim and Danh Vo
YDP has invited Christine Sun Kim (b. 1980, Orange County; lives in Berlin) to create a new site-specific commission in response to themes central to YDP’s founding ethos, including ideas of home, movement and dialogue. Installed across the glass façade of a two-storey link building that overlooks an internal courtyard, the mural will sit at the meeting point between YDP’s original Georgian architecture, 20th-century additions and recent reconstruction. It will bridge the spaces dedicated to exhibitions, residencies and events. Drawing upon recurring motifs in Kim’s practice, the playfulness of the commission echoes YDP’s character as an experimental and lively hub for art.
Danh Vo (b.1975, Bà Ria; lives in Mexico City and Berlin) has been commissioned to activate the YDP Reception and make provision for visitors to dwell, take time and take care while they are at the space. Vo’s commission is an open-ended project and an ongoing collaboration to introduce comfort and life into a new home, a common practice within the diasporic experience. In dialogue with the domestic nature of YDP’s building and the act of hosting central to its mission, the artist will propose ways for the space to become a living organism and to evolve over time.
Artist residency: Harit Srikhao
As part of its yearly programme, YDP will host bespoke artist residencies. Designed to support individual creative practices and fostering research, experimentation and ongoing dialogue, the residencies will provide studio and display spaces at YDP’s home on Bedford Square.
The inaugural artist-in-residence, Harit Srikhao (b.1995, Pathum Thani; lives in Bangkok), will be hosted by YDP from September to November 2025. Rooted in interrogating inherent relations in the composition of image making, Srikhao’s practice focuses on photography, the tension between being in front of and behind the lens, and the relationship between fiction and fact. During his residency, Srikhao will continue his research into theatrical storytelling and the history of using dolls, puppets and marionettes. He will work with local makers towards the realisation of a new body of work that will weave together invented narratives with the real-life tale of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue. At times throughout the residency, aspects of the artist’s previous research and work-in-progress will be on display to the public. The residency will culminate with an Open Studio event in November, where the artist will share his research and progress to date.
Notes to editors
About YDP
Emerging from Asian backgrounds and drawing upon a multitude of diasporic experiences, YDP amplifies artists' voices and responds to their needs through a programme of exhibitions, residencies and artist-led experiments.
We learn from and grow alongside artists, taking time to reflect on and present contemporary practices. With a flexible approach, we explore new models for nurturing creativity and criticality.
Our home on Bedford Square is a convivial space where we exchange ideas, form bonds and imagine the future of art. We let an open and transcultural spirit guide our work.
YDP is an independent, non-profit project space where everyone is welcome.
Address: 19 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3JA
Website: ydp.co
Instagram: @ydp_space
For media enquiries, please contact
Joseph Lamb, Sutton, joseph@suttoncomms.com
Manuela Gressani, Sutton, manuela@suttoncomms.com
