I applied for AA2A because I wanted a chance to keep making work.
As a moving image artist based in London, I know that ideas are often limited by practical things—studio space, equipment and production costs. Sometimes a project isn’t impossible, it just has to wait. AA2A gave me the time and space to keep moving forward.
I still remember my first day at New City College’s Tower Hamlets Campus. The sun was shining. The reception staff and security team greeted me warmly, and the campus immediately felt calm, safe and welcoming. When I was shown around, the green screen studio caught my attention straight away. Although I never ended up using it, simply knowing it was there made me think differently about future projects. Along with the photography studios, computer rooms and workshops, it felt like a place where ideas could grow.
But when I think back now, the first things that come to mind aren’t the facilities.
They’re the people.
Jane would sometimes show me photos of the young swans she had been feeding. It had nothing to do with art, but somehow those conversations stayed with me. They reminded me that a creative community isn’t built only through work, but through the small things people choose to share with one another.
I also loved spending time with the students. We went out together, visited the Serpentine Galleries, and wandered through public sculptures in Hyde Park. There was always a sense of curiosity.
One student made a dragon that I still remember. She built its frame with paper and thin wooden sticks, shaped the whiskers from wire, then carefully threaded tiny translucent beads onto them. I stood looking at it for a long time. It wasn’t about technical perfection. It was simply full of imagination. Looking at that dragon, I couldn’t help wondering what she might make in ten years’ time.
There were quieter moments too.
Before I had learnt many of the students’ names, some of them had already remembered mine.
Every now and then, someone would smile and say,
“Bye, Shan.”
It was such a small thing, but it always made me smile.
Towards the end of the residency, I visited the students’ final exhibition. There were paintings, films, sculptures, tie-dye textiles and all kinds of experiments. Of course they were talented, but what moved me most wasn’t the quality of the work. It was their willingness to try. Standing there, I was reminded of how I felt when I first started making art—before deadlines, funding applications and budgets became part of every project. They reminded me that curiosity comes before everything else.
Some of my favourite memories happened just before I went home.
I often stayed until around six o’clock. By then, the campus had become almost empty. The last light of the afternoon would fall across the benches, the clock on the wall, the canteen and the quiet corridors. Nothing special was happening.
But those evenings never felt empty.
They felt like the kind of place where ideas have time to grow.
When I think about AA2A now, I don’t first remember the green screen studio or the computer rooms.
I remember a dragon with beaded whiskers.
I remember someone calling, “Bye, Shan.”
I remember Jane showing me photos of her swans.
And I remember the last light before going home.
Those are the moments that stayed with me.
Those are the moments that became the soil for new work.
Shan Hua, AA2A artist in residence 25-26 New City College, London
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