'John Anthony (c. 1766-1805)' explores the little-known history of the English East India Company’s Chinese employees migrating to East London in the late 18th century and early 19th century. Their successors were known for starting the first British Chinatown in Limehouse. Among them, John Anthony (whose Chinese name is unknown), an interpreter for the EIC, was the first Chinese person to become a British citizen. Wealthy and widely respected by both EIC and the Chinese community in London, he managed to be naturalised through an Act of Parliament in 1805. His job required him to look after Chinese lascars at a time when the EIC employed seamen from various countries including the then Chinese Empire. 

This sound-based work features a monologue of John Anthony, informed by a variety of sources: Anthony’s handwritten will from the National Archives, a pertinent court proceeding of the Old Bailey, as well as relevant literature.Across time and space, the Chinese native reflects on his life and legacy as one of the earliest Chinese residents in Britain and the nature and limitation of revisiting history on the basis of archival materials. This fictional and yet historical storytelling shines alight on the pre-colonial history of Chinese employees working for the English East India Company in both Canton and London before the two Opium Wars (1839-1842 and 1856-1860).

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Clare Chun-yu Liu is a UK-based Taiwanese artist filmmaker, researcher and lecturer. Clare is Research Fellow at Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Germany and was Vice-Chancellor PhD Scholar at Manchester School of Art in the UK. Clare is interested in the Chinese diaspora and identity with a focus on lived experience and oral history. Since her now completed PhD, Clare has been producing postcolonial, cross-cultural and diasporic Chinese readings of chinoiserie through fictional ethnographic filmmaking. She has presented her research at Oxford University, Central Saint Martins, and University College London. Her article on the Royal Pavilion Brighton has been published by the British Art Network. Clare’s films have been screened/exhibited internationally, including at the Institute of Contemporary Arts London, EXiS, Image Forum Festival, Kasseler Dokfest, Taipei International Video Art Exhibition, Goethe Institut Lisbon and Minsheng Art Museum Beijing. Her films are in collections at VIDEOTAGE Media Art Collection in Hong Kong, China and Asian Film Archive in Singapore.

John Anthony (c. 1766-1805)

How do you remember a street that has disappeared off the map? 
Known as Sailor Town or the "aliens quarter", the area around Pitt Street in Liverpool was home to one the earliest Chinese communities that settled in Europe from the late 19th century. Once a vibrant transnational space where Filipino, Malaysian, Caribbean, Hispanic, and West African seafarers lived shoulder to shoulder, physical traces of this dockside neighbourhood have now vanished. 
Narrated around a series of real and fictional archive materials, this on-going project combines speculative archival research, fictional re-telling, and community workshops to trace the overlapping histories of the now invisible Pitt Street. An Imaginary Archive of Pitt Street follows a young woman searching for a man known in the family only as“Ah Sam”. As she traces the elusive presence of Ah Sam in the archives, it marks the beginning of a speculative journey that led the narrator to reimagine the histories of Pitt Street and its inhabitants.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Hester Yang is a London-based Chinese filmmaker, photographer, and the co-founder of the screening collective Sine Screen. With a particular interest in alternative means of documentary storytelling, her artistic and curatorial practice revolves around ideas of memory, historical erasure, migration, and complex diasporic experiences. Her project 'The Undesirables' was selected for the 2023 iteration of New Contemporaries and has been shown in The Bomb Factory, Output Gallery, Open Eye Gallery, Grundy Art Gallery, and Camden Arts Centre.


An Imaginary Archive of Pitt Street

Homecoming

Pennyfields Theme

Broken Blossom

Intro (Outcasts)

Mazu, Goddess of the Sea

Hard Times on Narrow Street

Chris Zhongtian Yuan is a London-based artist whose project stems from a personal encounter with Dr. Chloe Lee’s research at the National Archives, which uncovered the little-known presence of Chinese migrants aboard the Empire Windrush in 1948. Lingering as a faint memory for two years, Yuan's project seeks to explore the kind of music that might have been playing aboard the Windrush. Collaborating with long-term partners, including trumpeter Kevin G. Davy and vocalist Cath Johnson, the project is a work-in-progress compositional framework. It employs improvisation techniques and a modular structure to weave together archival materials, live fictions, loneliness, and pleasure.

That dark, sugary sea

The exhibition features a new iteration of ‘Three Contemporary Prosperities’, which reimagines the traditional Chinese deities Fú 福, Lù 祿, Shòu 壽 – celestial embodiments of Fortune, Prosperity, and Longevity – as hyper-contemporary figures: The Brilliant Billionaire, The Perfect Celebrity, and The Immortal Elder. Presented in the Communal Project Space, this woven work evolves with each display – a millionaire becomes a billionaire, an influencer becomes a celebrity – prompting reflections on how the age-old aspirations of a ‘good life’ are shaped by shifting societal desires.

Together, these works chart quiet currents that carry threads of longing and resilience across oceans and generations, navigating the turning tides between departure and return, loss and reinvention. Anchored in textile and sculptural language, the exhibition considers how cultural memory and moral frameworks endure – or unravel – across shifting geographies.

‘Three Contemporary Prosperities’

Smooth Sailing, 一路順風, 'Spirit of Labour’

Smooth Sailing, 一路順風, 'Abandonment'

Smooth Sailing, 一路順風, ‘Love, Labour, Loneliness’

Smooth Sailing, 一路順風, 'Hope and Fear'

esea contemporary is the UK’s only non-profit art centre specialising in presenting and platforming artists and art practices that identify with and are informed by East and Southeast Asian (ESEA) cultural backgrounds.

esea contemporary is situated in an award-winning building in the heart of Manchester, home to one of the largest East Asian populations in the UK. Since its inauguration as a community-oriented visual arts festival in 1986, esea contemporary – previously named Centre for Chinese Contemporary Art – has continuously evolved to establish itself as a dynamic and engaging space for cross-cultural exchanges in the British art scene, as well as in a global context. 

esea contemporary aims to increase the visibility of contemporary art practices from the East and Southeast Asian communities and their diasporas. It is a site for forward-thinking art programmes that beyond exhibitions also include commissions, research, residencies, publishing, and a wide range of vibrant public events. esea contemporary values creativity, compassion, interconnectedness, and collectivity in implementing its mission.

esea contemporary

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