Hester is an artist-researcher based in London and Beijing. Her hybrid practice explores histories at the margins of visibility and audibility, working across sound, moving image, and archival interventions.
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Drawing on speculative and collaborative approaches, her work attends to histories shaped by displacement, racialised labour, and migration. Recent projects focus on port cities and their colonial entanglements, examining diasporic formations through a long-term research enquiry anchored in Liverpool.​​
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As co-founder of Sine Screen, an independnet moving image collective that seeks to open up space for critical dialogue around East & Southeast Asia in the UK, she has curated programmes with Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA), Barbican, LUX, esea contemporary, Goldsmiths CCA, among other spaces.
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She is the founder of Unruly Ear collective, an research and curatorial initiative exploring sound and alternative listening practices.
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Curatorial projects (selected)
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2026 / upcoming
Sonic Other_lands [exhibition + public program], Goethe Institute, Beijing
2025
Whose Homeland [film and moving-image season], multiple sites, London
Speculative Intimacies: The Worlds of Yarli Allison & Letizia Miro [screening programme], part of SXSW London​
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2024
Vulnerable Histories [public programme series, hybrid format], multiple sites, London
Tomorrow's History [moving-image installation], part of From (Counter-)Archives to Activation , esea contemporary, Manchester
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2023
Chronic Youth [film festival], part of Barbican Young Programmers, Barbican cinema​, London
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Selected Exhibitions & Awards
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2025
Where the Sea Reaches [group exhibition], He Xiangning ​ Art Museum, Shenzhen
Archive Fever [group exhibition], Accent Sisters, New York
Erinnerungen an Heute / Memories of Today festival [screening], Gemeinde Koln, Cologne
Voicing the Archive [group exhibition], esea contemporary, Manchester
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2024
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Ghost Dance [group exhibition], Jimei x Arles Photography Festival, Xiamen
All Our Stories: Migration and the Making of Britain [group exhibition], Migration Museum, London
Screening Rights Festival [screening], MAC Birmingham
From (Counter-)Archives to Activation [exhibition], esea contemporary, Manchester
Seeing Double, part of Foreign Bodies [exhibition], Exeter
Three Shadows Photography Award ä¸‰å½±å ‚æ‘„å½±å¥– [group exhibition], Beijing
New Contemporaries [group exhibition], Camden Arts Centre, London
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2023
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New Contemporaries [group exhibition], Grundy Gallery, Blackpool
Screening as part of Liverpool Independent Biennial [screening], Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool
OUTPUT Gallery Photography Open [group exhibition], The Bridewell Studios, Liverpool
Lucky Number 8 [group exhibition], The Bomb Factory, London
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2022
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Current Obsessions, MA Photojournalism and Documentary Photography graduate show, University of the Arts London, 2022
BBC New Creatives showcase [group exhibition], ICA, 2022
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Social media handle
Ig: @_retseh @sine_screen
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Contact: hesteryangishere@gmail.com
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