In its 9th edition, the 2026 Workshops for Arts Professionals takes place in conjunction with Unsubscribe All! – the 8th Para Site International Conference. Building on its theme, this year’s programme investigates where contemporary art and technology meet, inviting participants to critically reflect on the technological conditions shaping contemporary life. Looking beyond narratives of technological inevitability, it explores alternative methodologies for artistic production, collaboration, and knowledge exchange.
Rather than treating technology as an opaque ‘black box’, the programme approaches it as a socially embedded infrastructure that shapes our physical environments, digital lives, languages, and communities. Through this lens, participants examine how technological systems operate across these interconnected domains and consider how artists and communities reclaim agency by generating alternative meanings, forms of exchange, and networks of support. With a particular focus on the Asia-Pacific region, the programme addresses questions of resource sharing, cross-disciplinary collaboration, community building, and equitable access to technology.
Across seven days of intensive workshops, site visits, lectures, and facilitated discussions, the cohort engages with regional and international practitioners. Facilitators include Winnie Soon (Hong Kong/London) and Mara Karagianni (London/Brussels), artists researching collaborative publishing and queer coding; Clara Che Wei Peh (Singapore), a curator investigating emerging technologies in Southeast Asian art ecosystems; Sophie Penkethman-Young (Sydney), an artist and digital producer examining digital museum culture and internet-based practices; Ashley Lee Wong (Hong Kong), a researcher exploring the cultural economies of art and technology; Ziyang Wu (Hangzhou), an artist employing AI and worlding strategies to critique digital societies; and Günseli Yalcinkaya (London), an internet folklorist researching online culture and digital myth-making.
Following an open call, the 2026 cohort of participants includes: Franco Brobio (Quezon City), Jeremy Chen (London/Hong Kong), John Chow Ho Fung (Hong Kong), Guo Cheng (Shanghai), Erfan Ghiasi (Tehran), Danny Hartanto Kristiawan (Surabaya), Ana Marinkovic (Barcelona), Iacopo Prinetti (Turin), Crassula Shang (Chiang Mai/San Francisco), Lua Vollaard (Amsterdam), canvaswan (Cologne), Ailsa Wong (Hong Kong), and Hui Ye (Vienna).