Once seen, it can never be forgotten: the defiant face of Ai Weiwei as he drops a 2,000-year-old urn, letting it shatter at his feet. Ceramics have come to represent Chinese history more than any other art form, so the outcry that followed Ai’s performance and his invocation of the Cultural Revolution slogan Smash the four olds! was hardly unexpected — but for all the brouhaha, the work marked the beginning of a new centring of ceramics in Chinese contemporary art.

Valeria Frolova hasn’t seen her father in years. She was 5 when he left on a voyage to the South Pole, as Valeria would later be told, by her devoted mother, Nadezhda. Growing up, Valeria longed to meet her Father, and cites his absence in her life as the inspiration behind her work as a video blogger.