The ELIA Leadership Symposium brings together influential leaders from higher arts education institutions and universities across the globe for timely exchange and discussion. This edition, to be hosted by the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou from 20-22 November 2019, focuses on the challenges of cross-cultural collaboration within the realm of higher arts education, with the goal of mapping the common ground.

Keynote speakers, including François Jullien, Pi Li, and Areti Markopoulou, will present ontopics: Utopias in art education and utopian practices outside academy, Difference as Resource, and Unpacking the Chinese Contemporary.

Overall, the conference will give special attention to networking and partnership building
between leading Chinese and Western arts universities, discussing:

• How we identify the “unthought of” that lies between cultures?
• What and how do we teach and do research in these contexts?
• What are some of the cultural biases that might stand in the way of fruitful collaborations?
• How can we, as leaders, equip our institutions with the right tools to overcome these biases?