Colin Chinnery: From SOAS to Sound, Language and the Making of a New Museum Model

Colin Chinnery’s journey from SOAS student to museum director has followed an unconventional and exploratory path, shaped by language, culture, music and contemporary art. This article traces how his studies in Chinese language and civilisation opened the door to creative communities in Beijing and eventually to the founding of the Sound Art Museum, a unique institution rethinking what a museum can be. For this article, we were delighted to collaborate with Sarah Chew and Yukie Shirasakim, who are studying Curating Cultures at SOAS.

From Language to Creative Awakening

For Colin Chinnery (BA Chinese, 1997), studying at SOAS was never about pursuing a conventional academic career. He enrolled on the Chinese language and civilisation programme because, although he could speak Chinese fluently, he could not read or write it. Becoming literate in his own heritage language felt essential rather than academic. That decision was shaped further by his grandmother, a prominent Chinese writer, whose return to China late in life revealed layers of cultural memory and political history that had previously felt distant. Through SOAS, Chinnery found intellectual space to explore language, history and identity in a deeper and more personal way.

SOAS also offered early immersion. Moving directly into the year abroad in Beijing, he took seriously the idea that learning extended far beyond the classroom. Instead of focusing solely on coursework, he embedded himself in one of China’s first artist communities at Yuanmingyuan, documenting exhibitions, developing photographs in his dormitory room and experimenting with early video technology. It was here that he felt, for the first time, fully at ease among artists. These encounters led to the formation of a band and marked the beginning of his creative practice. Although this period delayed his academic progress, it proved foundational to his future work.

Returning to China and Reimagining Institutions

After returning to London to complete his degree, Chinnery joined the British Library to work on the International Dunhuang Project, an academic role that deepened his engagement with manuscripts, languages and cultural heritage. While the position brought professional success, it also clarified that academia was not his long term destination. Increasingly drawn to contemporary art and creative experimentation, he returned to China, reconnecting with the artistic networks first formed during his year abroad at SOAS.

That circuitous path eventually led to the founding of the Sound Art Museum in Beijing, which opened in 2023. Dedicated entirely to sound, the museum challenges traditional assumptions about what a collection can be and how exhibitions are made. Working with sound rather than physical objects requires a fundamentally different curatorial logic, one that treats digital files and listening experiences as central rather than supplementary. For Chinnery, this shift is an opportunity to rethink the role of museums in a changing world.

Operating outside Beijing’s main cultural hubs and without major institutional backing, the museum has developed gradually. With a small team, it has focused on experimentation, adaptability and collaboration rather than scale, testing new ways of engaging audiences and sustaining long term practice.

Ecologies of Sound, Culture and the Future

At the core of the Sound Art Museum’s vision is the idea of ecology. Because sound connects naturally to science, culture, technology and the environment, the museum’s work is inherently cross disciplinary. This approach has taken shape through two main project strands. The first focuses on acoustic ecology through Soundscape China, a nationwide initiative developed with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to create China’s first comprehensive database of natural sounds. The project has already been incorporated into a UNESCO ten year programme and has led to new public initiatives, including the development of a Sonic Ecology Park in Beijing.

The second strand explores cultural ecology through a non tangible sound map of China, documenting the sounds of daily life, heritage and place across regions including Tibet, the Yellow River and the Great Wall. These projects treat culture as something ecological, sustained by relationships and shaped over time. Alongside this, Chinnery has drawn directly on his SOAS and British Library experience through projects such as the reconstruction of ancient Xinjiang languages, an exhibition that later developed into collaboration with the British Library on its Dunhuang manuscripts.

As the Sound Art Museum enters its next phase, its ambitions remain deliberately open ended. Rather than fixing meaning or form, it seeks to grow organically through listening, collaboration and care. For Chinnery, this approach reflects a belief shaped at SOAS and refined over decades: that culture, like sound, is not static but relational, evolving through context, connection and shared experience.