In 2025 Trebuchet was contacted by INKU Sphere about partnering to promote emerging artists from non-Western cultural backgrounds. Bringing together visions that draw on different cultural traditions we’re offered a parallax view on global, Western and Asian creativity, contemporary visions that are often connected by ideas of culture mediated and circulated through social media. A landscape through and against which all artists must now contend.
For this article we wanted to give space to our partner’s vision: how they see their aims, their past and where they’re heading. Prompted to tell us more, INKU Sphere co-founders Chen Yang and Haige Wu sent us a conversational, topic-led statement of their long-term vision for an artist-led platform grounded in care, cultural exchange and public engagement.
The history of INKU Sphere and Pending Response
We met in August 2024 at Somerset House while visiting a London Craft Week exhibition. We already knew of each other as MA Fine Art alumni at Central Saint Martins, but had never spoken.
Chen was working in the art world at Frameless London doing audience development and communications. Haige was developing Duen Studio which is her art furniture practice founded with her business partner in Paris.
We had many long conversations on art and business after meeting each other. And we found that despite our different paths, we shared many of the same concerns. So we decided to build INKU Sphere to address some of those concerns, such as how to enter the local art scene using only our own personal resources and network, accessing professional guidance, as well as finding belonging in a new country. We wanted to build the platform we had needed ourselves. INKU Sphere grew out of that and was shaped by our artists who wanted to make work, find visibility, and develop their careers without compromising their practice.
We felt that many opportunities ended with the exhibition itself. Artists might be invited to show their work but receive little support with documentation, communication, critical context or what should happen afterwards.
As artists ourselves, we know that visibility alone is not enough. Artists also need honest conversations, professional guidance, and relationships that continue beyond one project. We want INKU Sphere to connect different regions and cultures, allowing artists to develop their practices, gain professional visibility and form genuine relationships. The aim is to build a community and network rather than only provide a temporary exhibition space.
Art and Social Roles
We believe an art platform should respond to the social conditions in which people live. Art should offer more than an aesthetic experience, it should encourage audiences to consider the questions a work raises. Issues such as migration, isolation, cultural disconnection, and uncertainty around identity concern us and our artists, and should not only remain outside the gallery.
INKU Sphere wants to create a space where difficult experiences can be approached collectively. Art cannot solve every social problem, but it can give form to experiences that remain invisible, create dialogue, and help people recognise parts of their own lives in someone else’s work.
Art, migration, race, national identity and belonging
As Chinese artists who have built our lives and practices across different countries, belonging is personal to us. Moving between cultures can create opportunities, but the distance from one’s native language, community and familiar sense of self can be psychologically difficult. It’s a double-edged experience that continues to raise new questions in our work.
Migration, race or national identity are not, for INKU Sphere, abstract themes. We consider how they tangibly shape daily life, memory, visibility and access to cultural spaces. We bring artists from different backgrounds together without reducing them to labels or asking one person to represent an entire culture.
Pending Response
Pending Response asked what happens when waiting stops feeling temporary and becomes part of how a person lives. In contemporary life, we keep sending, checking and refreshing. Excitement and anxiety about the unknown sit within everyday routines as life continues without any certainty about when a response might arrive.
The exhibition brought together 18 artists across painting, sculpture, photography, installation, artist books, glass, ceramics, sound and performance at Somers Gallery, Somers Town (21 to 28 August 2026). These materials and bodily experiences gave waiting a physical presence. The neighbourhood added another layer, linking personal uncertainty to an area shaped by movement, redevelopment and repeated displacement.
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The challenges of Pending Response
The greatest challenge was meeting different needs without losing the coherence of the exhibition. Each artist had specific requirements for transport, installation, equipment and documentation. We also needed to respect Shuning Liu’s curatorial framework and support the coordinators, technicians, photographers, and filmmakers working across the project.
We learned that care depends on structure. Clear schedules, condition records, insurance, responsibilities and contingency plans create the trust that allows artistic work to happen. Leadership also means giving each person enough clarity and space to contribute their expertise rather than controlling every decision.
For us, care does not mean making an exhibition visually safe or intellectually easy. We want INKU Sphere to present bold contemporary work and address difficult subjects while creating an environment in which artists and audiences feel respected.
We made communication one of our top priorities. That meant explaining context, listening to artists’ concerns, and considering how different audiences might understand an exhibition. We worked to make our exhibitions accessible by offering different points of entry through space, writing, conversation, performance, moving image and participatory activity, rather than simplifying the works.
Successes and learnings
The exhibition attracted artists, writers, independent curators, galleries and cultural organisations from Europe and Asia. We were able to have discussions about future exhibitions, editorial projects, artist interviews and potential collaborations.
Our exhibiting artists told us that we handled their work with care, and that they were happy with the curation of the overall exhibition and location, feeling that their works gained new meaning in the space alongside the other artists’ works. We had many visitors who responded well to the professional presentation of the exhibition and commended the atmosphere formed by the cross-media artworks.
Their feedback showed us that INKU Sphere can connect art with audiences and bring together people who may continue supporting one another after the exhibition closes.
One of the most meaningful moments was seeing the gallery come alive during the preview as unexpected relationships emerged between the works. After months of planning, transportation, and problem-solving, the artists were meeting one another and visitors were choosing to stay with the work to discuss them.
We were also proud to see the team respond calmly to unexpected situations and support one another without waiting for instructions. Our main lesson was to establish clear systems early while leaving room for independent agency for our team members. A platform becomes stronger when responsibility is genuinely shared.
Long term vision of INKU Sphere
We want INKU Sphere to grow beyond an exhibition platform. Inspired by October Gallery and Hospital Rooms, we hope to develop our own arts and wellbeing programme, establish a lasting presence in the UK and Europe, and build a distinct cultural identity.
Alongside bold and critically engaging exhibitions, we want to support diverse forms of expression. Performance, moving image, workshops and participatory programmes can extend an exhibition and engage audiences in different ways while opening up conversations around cultural loss, race, migration, national identity, emotional wellbeing and belonging.
Ultimately, at the centre of our platform is a community of artists, curators, writers and cultural practitioners who exchange knowledge and support one another. We want art to build connection, encourage cultural exchange and contribute to public life.
Pending Response, Somers Gallery, 96 Chalton Street, London NW1 1HJ, 21 to 28 August 2026. Curated by Shuning Liu. Presented and produced by INKU Sphere in collaboration with Somers Gallery.
Images courtesy of INKU Sphere. Photography by INKU team.
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
