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ELSEHERE is an international arts nexus, journal and artist incubator that lives in the space between worlds. We meet work before it is fully named, then help it enter the world with clarity, context, and care. 

 

ELSEHERE is building a global hub for contemporary art and culture: a place where artists and researchers meet, exchange methods, and share work in its raw, pre-categorical stage. We design an ecosystem that can hold experimental practice with care, support the lives around it, and expand the conditions in which art can exist and access.

Initiatives and Programs

Commissions, open calls, research formats, and public moments, designed as conditions where work can deepen and be seen without being simplified.

  • ELSEHERE Lab: Practice as Research (English)
    ELSEHERE Lab: Practice as Research (English)
    Limited seats
    Multiple Dates
    Wed, Feb 25
    Feb 25, 2026, 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM EST
    Link sent after RSVP
    A focused online room for practice, framing, and peer exchange. Limited seats.
  • ELSEHERE

    #Works That Will Not End

    The piece that stayed with you long after the premiere, the deadline, the upload, the rejection. The work that keeps returning in your body, your memory, your hard drive, your notes. The thing you moved on from, but that never quite moved on from you.

    February 11, 2026
    March 18, 2026
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    Shenming Xiao

    Director, Choreographer

    Graduated from the Choreography Department of Beijing Dance Academy, he is currently employed by China Railway Art Troupe. He once served in the Mobile Unit of the Border Defense Armed Police in Xishuangbanna, Yunnan, boasting both military experience and professional heritage from a top art institution.Taking top dance competitions as the benchmark, his works have won numerous core national and provincial honors, with outstanding performances in folk dance and dance drama competitions. He has also served as the chief director of several landmark live-action cultural and tourism plays and participated in the choreography of national-level dance dramas. He is familiar with the entire process from the incubation of competition-level works to the implementation of large-scale art projects.His dance video works have been shortlisted and recognized in international film festivals many times, demonstrating both professional dance skills and the ability to integrate diverse arts.As a core creator in China's dance creation field with both professional competition competitiveness and diverse practical capabilities, he spans stage art, cultural and tourism IP development, and dance imaging. He can deeply integrate dance with various art forms to form a distinct creative style.
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    Ning Li

    Experimental theater and film director, Body-based performance artist, Director of photography, Editor, and Curator of site-specific projects

    Li Ning (together with his collective “Lingyun Flame”) was born in 1972 in Jinan, Shandong, China. He works across multiple roles as an experimental theater and film director, body-based performance artist, director of photography, editor, and curator of site-specific projects. Li graduated from the Fine Arts Education Department of Shandong University of Arts, with additional studies in sculpture. In 1997, he founded the “Lingyun Flame Physical Guerrilla Group,” and for many years has carried out cutting-edge explorations in physical theater and film. As a theater artist, he has been invited to perform, screen work, and give talks at festivals such as JULIDANS in Amsterdam, the CULTURESCAPES Festival in Switzerland, and others. He has participated in devising work with the French situational theater company Ilimitrof Company, and has led the Lingyun Flame Physical Guerrilla Group on touring performances at the Avignon Festival, the Aurillac Festival of Street Arts, the Gent Arts Festival in Belgium, the Tokyo Festival, the Wuzhen Theatre Festival, the New York “Innovative China” Festival, the Beijing International Youth Theater Festival, the Shenzhen–Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, the Dashanzi Arts Festival in Beijing, and many other events. As a contemporary practitioner of body-based education, he emphasizes the development and systematization of training methods. Drawing on his own background in visual art, he created the performance and training course “Body Sketching and Re-Sketching.” For many years he has actively carried out workshops in universities and communities across different regions, building a bridge between ordinary people and contemporary art, and helping to enhance participants’ physical–mental creativity and aesthetic awareness. He has been invited by institutions such as New York University (NYU), the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), Hubei Institute of Fine Arts, China Academy of Art, Shandong University, and others to give lectures or teach longer-term courses, and has served as artistic advisor for graduation presentations in fashion design and new media. As an image-maker, he has been selected for and awarded at multiple international film festivals. Representative works such as TAPE and Untitled-3 have been collected by university libraries, art museums, and other museums in Europe and North America. He has received support from multiple foundations to complete his films, including the DOEN Foundation in the Netherlands (which supported Li Ning for three consecutive years in 2006, 2007, and 2008), the EU cultural project “Chin-A-Moves,” as well as the Indie Cinema Fund for Chinese independent film, the Goethe-Institut, and others. As a curator, he has initiated and run platforms for rural and community-based art such as the Fangyu ART Festival in Jinan, the Laiwu International Factory Theatre Festival, and the Qichangcheng Rural Arts Festival. His core belief is: “Space is not merely a stage on which people perform. It is itself a work.” His ideal is: “To let theater once again become a form of public entertainment in everyday life.” He has been called “the initiator of public theater.”
    ELSEHERE

    Chun Heehyun

    Composer, Performer

    Chun Heehyun is a composer and performer who transforms sound into music, crafting immersive and evolving soundscapes in which music assumes the narrative role traditionally occupied by sound effects. Her work invites audiences to experience sonic texture as an integral cinematic language rather than a supporting element. Drawing on modular synthesis, Eurorack systems, gayageum, haegeum, and janggu compositional structures, she creates richly layered auditory environments that develop organically within filmic and performative contexts. Rooted in a Korean identity shaped by her upbringing in Korea and her musical training in the United States, Chun’s practice is grounded in interdisciplinary inquiry, experimental performance strategies, and a sustained commitment to expressing cultural identity through sound. Chun Heehyun composes original soundtracks for film, live performance, and immersive installations, integrating modular, Eurorack, and electronic instrumentation to expand the boundaries of auditory experience. Through computer-based MIDI orchestration, she reimagines Western orchestral instruments to suggest the timbral qualities of traditional Korean instruments such as the gayageum, haegeum, and janggu, bridging cultural memory and contemporary sonic exploration.
    ELSEHERE

    Chenwei Li

    Cinematographer, Photographer, Screenwriter, Director

    Li Chenwei is an emerging image maker and photography artist based in China, holding an MFA in Cinematography from the Beijing Film Academy. Combining a strong academic foundation with versatile creative practice and growing international visibility, he works across short film cinematography, documentary and street photography, and experimental moving image. His practice is rooted in light and shadow as narrative, precise emotional observation, and formally adventurous visual language. As a cinematographer, Li shapes the overall visual tone of short films such as To Spring and Poems and Songs, while also independently conceiving and realizing still photography and experimental video projects. Moving fluently between media, he continually pushes the boundaries of his own style, shifting from narrative work to documentary and gallery-oriented image making. His work has received both critical and academic recognition. The photographic series Lover was included in the exhibition “Parallel Gathering” and published in the August 2023 issue of Chinese Photography magazine. His documentary and photo series Xuejie – Haonan for Tencent News’ “Guyu Images” won the Tencent News Annual Click Award and was shown in the exhibition “Art Achieves Dreams,” while the project The Place Where We Stand was selected for China Youth Daily’s “Glimmer Project.” Earlier works such as Dead Crow and the experimental video Double-click Punk were included in the 4th and 5th “Academy Photography Award” exhibitions. Li’s more recent moving-image work has been recognized on the international festival circuit. To Spring received the Best Cinematography award at the International Screen Dance Film Festival and was selected by the Bucharest International Dance Film Festival. Poems and Songs was named Best Extreme Creation Film at the Beijing International Film Festival Dance on Camera section. Grounded in research yet driven by a strong poetic and visual imagination, Li uses the camera to deconstruct emotion and reality, emerging as a compelling new voice in contemporary image-making.
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    #Works That Will Not End

    What is the work that would not end. The thing you moved on from, but that never quite moved on from you.

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