Beijing exhibition exploring Xinjiang heritage accused of ‘cultural appropriation’

MNTV News Desk — A group of artists, curators and gallerists from East Turkestan, also called Xinjiang, has criticised an exhibition held during the summer in Beijing, accusing it of cultural appropriation and misrepresentation, at times even reinforcing ethnic stereotypes”, reports The Art Newspaper. 

The exhibition, Greetings, featured the work of the Beijing-based artist Dan Er, and was held at the Maca Art Center from 22 March to 15 June 2025. It focused on Dan’s travels through East Turkestan and interactions with its heritage arts.

East Turkestan is known domestically for its scenery and resources, but known globally for being a site of alleged forced labour and other human rights abuses, where the local culture of its mostly Muslim Uyghur and 46 other indigenous ethnic groups is being erased. 

In a statement published on Pailang Museum, a bilingual webzine about indigenous issues in Asia, the anonymous cross-ethnic Xinjiang collective Yixak claimed that “no one on the [Greetings] exhibition team appear[ed] to have any familiarity with the language—or the culture—it gestures towards“. 

Greetings incorporated Uyghur dance, architecture and textile patterns and techniques. Yixak’s complaints about the show include that it allegedly conflated the cultures of East Turkestan’s ethnic groups, and mislabelled and redefined East Turkestan traditions such as those relating to Aywan architecture. 

The group claimed the show made inaccurate generalisations, including the suggestion that all East Turkestan women can be addressed as “guli”, or flower. Yixak’s article also claimed the show did not credit Dan’s collaborators in East Turkestan and broadly excluded the communities depicted. 

Yixak maintains anonymity because of the risks involved in all advocacy for East Turkestan culture in China. It says most of its members were born and raised in East Turkestan, and work in contemporary art, architecture, law, editing, gaming, international relations, government, sociology and data analysis. Their ethnicities include Uyghur, Kazakh, Mongolian, Xibe and Han Chinese. 

The group explained to The Art Newspaper that it was compelled to speak out after reading reviews in Chinese-language media that included major errors about East Turkestan culture, and which gave the sense that Dan was Uyghur—when she is in fact from China’s dominant Han ethnicity. Some members of the group also saw the show in person. 

“Some of us felt there was something off about this exhibition; there were lots of stereotypical statements and factual mistakes,” Yixak said. Its Uyghur members felt deeply offended, it added. 

The group then reached out to friends with different backgrounds about their concerns, and “what began as casual chats soon sparked a cross-disciplinary, multi-ethnic discussion”. Both Dan Er and Maca declined to comment on the accusations.

Maca also did not respond to queries as to whether anyone from East Turkestan, of any ethnicity, was involved in the exhibition. Yixak said it does not see anyone with that background in the project’s published credits. “Perhaps MACA initially placed too much trust in Dan Er’s perspectives on Xinjiang—do they really believe the ideas of Xinjiang locals don’t matter?,” the group said.