UCL East Artists & academics knowledge exchange labs: exploring migration, identities and cultural fluidity with Laisul Hoque and Yang Zou
Thursday 9th April 2026 , 5:30pm to 8:30pm
UCL’s Cultural and Community Engagement team is collaborating with Bow Arts on a series of learning and networking events bringing together artists, researchers, and local communities. Participants will hear from a panel of speakers whose work touches on issues which relate to the themes of relocation, migration, memory, identities and cultural fluidity. The panel conversation will be followed by a Q&A and informal networking.
This is a fantastic opportunity to connect with others in the room to collectively work and think through some of the questions raised and reflect on how personal memories and experiences reshape identities and cultures.
Activations on the night:
- Hear from East London Art Prize winner Laisul Hoque and the exploration into his multidisciplinary practice, informed by his childhood memories and lived experiences. explore and decode microhistories and their global impacts. Hoque creates image-based works and installations that explore and decode microhistories and their global impacts. His practice investigates communication and miscommunication and adopts a reparative reading of the past.
- Fellow shortlisted artist Yang Zou will share thoughts related to his work I love you, life. I hope it’s great again (2024) is a short film documenting his train journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway across Russia over 9 days during the Russia-Ukraine War in 2023. Combining a purely observational style with poetic elements that focus on people’s emotions, his work is concerned with the misunderstandings between humans and machines as well as the collective anxieties that arise from societal shifts.
- We will also be joined by UCL researchers and academics – stay tuned for speaker announcements!
This knowledge exchange lab will be highly interactive, with plenty of opportunities for you to connect with others in the room to collectively work and think through some of the questions raised and reflect on our positionality within this context.
Please note there will be photography taken at this event for Bow Arts and UCL’s internal reporting and for sharing in print and social media.
This event will take place at UCL East Campus, Marshgate Building, 7 Sidings St, London E20 2AE
This event is co-curated by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts and Briony Fleming and Paris Hyman, UCL Cultural and Community Engagement at UCL East.
Book your free ticket here
More about Laisul Hoque
Laisul Hoque was born in Dhaka, Bangladesh, where he studied BA English Literature at North South University before completing an MA in Contemporary Photography, Practices and Philosophies at Central Saint Martins, UAL, London. Hoque is the winner of East London Art Prize 2025 and a finalist for the 2024 CIRCA Prize. Drawing from his memories and lived experiences, he creates image-based works and installations that explore and decode microhistories and their global impacts. His practice investigates communication, miscommunication, and adopts a reparative reading of the past.
Selected exhibitions / screenings include An Ode to All the Flavours, a day-long Exhibition, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Group Screening in the International Program, EXPERIMENTA, Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, screened at Piccadilly Lights screen, London, Limes Kurfürstendamm screen, Berlin, Essilor Luxottica screen in Cadorna Square, Milan, as part of CIRCA Prize 2024; An Ode to All the Flavours, Solo Exhibition, Kobi Nazrul Centre, London (2024); The Purpose was to Document the Other Side, Solo Screening, Studio 6/6, Dhaka (2024); Shorts: Joyful Lands, Joyful Bodies, Chronic Youth Film Festival, Group Screening, Barbican Centre, London (2024); I Don’t Call Enough but I’m Here Now, Solo Exhibition, Oitij-jo, London (2024).
More about Yang Zou
Yang Zou is a multidisciplinary visual artist working across film, installation and photography. His work particularly addresses ‘soft power’ – how political narratives are deployed through cultural production by the state to communicate certain principles and aspirations. Combining a purely observational style with poetic elements that focus on people’s emotions, his work is concerned with the misunderstandings between humans and machines as well as the collective anxieties that arise from societal shifts. Zou worked as a cultural journalist in China for many years before studying in the UK. He holds an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art and has been selected as one of the Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2024.
More about UCL
UCL is London’s leading multidisciplinary university, with more than 16,000 staff and 50,000 students. Our world leading academics, curious students and outstanding staff continually pursue excellence, break boundaries and make an impact on real world problems.
Access Information
If you have any questions regarding accessibility at this event or would like to make us aware of any access requirements that you have in advance of visiting, please email Briony on b.fleming@ucl.ac.uk
Access requirements could include things like providing equipment, services or support (e.g. information in Easy Read, speech to text software, additional 1:1 support), adjusting workshop timings (e.g. more break times), adjustments to the event space (e.g. making sure you have a table near the entrance) or anything else you can think of!
About the East London Art Prize Events Programme
The East London Art Prize events programme is a dynamic, free public programme open to all, which builds on the Prize’s ethos of providing ongoing support, development, and networking opportunities for artists in east London and beyond.
Featuring a constellation of workshops, talks, panels, lates, socials, labs, walks, and takeovers in collaboration with our Prize partners and featuring some familiar faces from our shortlist of 12 fantastic artists, this year’s events programme celebrates and pays homage to the huge abundance of talent and creativity nestled in east London.
These events have been developed by Wan Yi Sandra Lam, Curator: Programmes & Engagement at Bow Arts in collaboration with our Prize partners the British Council, The Line, London College of Fashion (LCF), London Legacy Development Corporation, University College London (UCL), V&A East, Whitechapel Gallery and Dulux.
Find out more about the wider programme here.
More about the East London Art Prize
The East London Art Prize is an all-media art prize designed to showcase the talent of artists working and living in east London, with an accompanying event programme supporting artists’ careers and opportunities. The Prize is generously funded by Minerva and Prue MacLeod. Find out more on the Prize webpage here.
