Dr. Sophia Grace Kidd is the founder and CEO of Yan Er Lu Arts International and an Associate Professor at Sichuan International Studies University. Over a twenty-five-year international career, she has spent fifteen years immersed in China’s contemporary art world, working across cultures as a curator, scholar, writer, translator, publisher, and advocate for international cultural understanding.

Through Yan Er Lu, she helps artists, writers, institutions, and creative enterprises communicate across cultural boundaries through language services, international branding and promotion, exhibition services, and publishing consulting. She also leads Igneus Press and Sophia Grace Gallery in Washington State.

Dr. Kidd holds an MA and PhD in Classical Chinese Literature from Sichuan University. She is the author of Culture Paves the New Silk Roads and the forthcoming China’s Art of Political Economy. Her Chengdu Cultural Immersion draws upon her scholarship, curatorial expertise, and longstanding relationships to provide meaningful access to the city’s artistic, literary, and creative communities.

Lingna Liu is an entrepreneur and business owner with over 13 years of experience in high-end soft furnishing and home design. She studied in Palermo, Italy, and later attended the SBE program at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Living and studying in Italy gave her deep exposure to local art, architecture, craftsmanship, and daily life, shaping her eye for aesthetics, materials, proportion, and quality of living. Stanford broadened her business perspective, helping her connect aesthetic pursuit with business practice. She has made Chengdu the operational hub linking Italian design resources with western China, and her business has been rooted in China-Italy exchanges from the start.

Since returning to Chengdu, she has brought Italian design into the city’s most representative high-end residential and villa projects. These homes are not only private residences but also windows for Chengdu’s high-net-worth clients to experience contemporary Italian design and manufacturing. On one hand, she has introduced mature home brands, artisan resources, and design thinking from Venice, Milan, and northeastern Italy to Chengdu, giving the southwestern market access to Italian lifestyle aesthetics without traveling abroad. On the other hand, she has brought Chengdu homeowners’ aesthetic preferences, living habits, and spatial needs back to Italy, helping European brands better understand western China. Over time, she has become a quiet yet solid link between Chengdu and Italy—connecting two distant cities at the level of lifestyle through completed homes and imported pieces.

To her, soft furnishing is not merely a combination of furniture, lighting, textiles, and artwork; it expresses a space’s character, a way of living, and an individual’s inner world. The value of aesthetics lies not only in appreciation but also in creation and transmission. She hopes to use business as a vehicle to integrate Italian aesthetic traditions and contemporary living concepts into local practice in Chengdu and western China, seeking balance between classic and modern, art and utility, aesthetic ideals and real-world needs.