Yun Qiu (Ara) is an independent curator, writer, and researcher currently based in Berlin, with a longstanding focus on the contemporary practices and historical narratives of women artists.

Qiu initiated the research group “Grey Matter”, which is the awarded fellow of the M+ Sigg Fellowship for Chinese Art Research 2022/23. She is also a 2023/24 recipient of the German Chancellor Fellowship. Qiu was the Deputy Director of Exhibitions and Curator at UCCA Center for Contemporary Art (2019–2022). Before this role, she was a curator at Qiao Space (2017–2018) and Long Museum (2015–2017). Qiu was deeply involved in preparing and opening UCCA Edge (Shanghai) and TANK SHANGHAI. Qiu has curated and organized over 15 exhibitions, including “Thomas Demand: The Stutter of History” (UCCA Edge, 2022); “Immaterial/Re-material: A Brief History of Computing Art” (UCCA Beijing, 2020–2021); “Resistance of the Sleepers” (UCCA Dune, 2020); and “Li Shuang: If Only the Cloud Knows” (New York City, 2018), among others.

Qiu served as a shortlist jury member for the Huayu Youth Award in 2021 and completed a curatorial residency at Residency Unlimited in New York in 2018. Her writing has appeared in publications such as M+ Magazine, LEAP, The Art Journal, and Art World. She earned her undergraduate degree in 2012 from the School of Television and Journalism at the Communication University of China, and her master’s in Arts Politics from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University in 2014.