Solo Exhibition – Art Gallery of Hamilton
Solo Exhibition: Chun Hua Catherine Dong
Gallery: Art Gallery of Hamilton
Guest curator: Tara Ng
Exhibition date: September 4, 2021 – January 2, 2022
Address: 123 King Street West, Hamilton, ON, CanadaL8P 4S8
This is the first major Canadian solo exhibition of works by Chinese-born, Montreal-based artist Chun Hua Catherine Dong. Working with performance, photography, and video for over a decade, Dong examines issues related to gender, cultural identity, migration, and diaspora. Chun Hua Catherine Dong presents photographs from the artist’s series I Have Been There (2015–ongoing) and Skin Deep (2014–20), in which brilliantly coloured traditional Chinese brocade silk fabrics play an important symbolic role in her exploration of her hybrid cultural identity as a Chinese Canadian immigrant and her ambivalent relationship to her homeland.
I Have Been There is an ongoing performance exploring themes of death, belonging, and diaspora. Each time Dong visits a new city, she creates a beautiful silk duvet that she places over her body as she lies on the ground in front of historical sites, tourist attractions, and other significant places or events. Dong’s performance is based on a funeral tradition in her hometown in which the daughters of a deceased person each make a duvet to place over their loved one’s body. As the only member of her family to immigrate to Canada, Dong adapts the ritual to her own particular circumstances and repeatedly performs it around the world as a poetic expression of her diasporic identity and engagement with different cultures and spaces. Occasionally attracting the attention of police and security personnel in certain places, Dong has also begun to view her performance as a political act that tests the democracy of public spaces.
Skin Deep explores the relationship between the concepts of shame and face in Chinese culture. Shame, or losing face, functions as a form of social control that prevents individuals—particularly women—from acting in ways that might disrupt the status quo. In Skin Deep, Dong explores the concept of losing face in a series of photographic self-portraits, combined with an AR (Augmented Reality) component, in which she conceals her face in the same traditional Chinese silk fabrics that comprise the background, signifying the loss of individual identity and absorption into a cultural identity. This condition reflects not only Dong’s experiences as a young woman in China but also as a Chinese immigrant in Canada.
For more info about this exhibition, please visit here
featured on the front of Vie des arts Magazine
I am very glad to see a picture of myself at my studio is featured on the front of Vie des arts Magazine. It is accompanied by an article, written by the deeply fantastic writer and artist, Didier Morelli, published on the magazine as well. This issue is on the booth on July 9, 2021.
For more about the article Didier Morelli wrote, please visit here
(Photo credit: Renaud Lafrenière)
Artist Residency -Charlevoix, Quebec
I am very pleased to announce that I will have an artist residency in Charlevoix, Quebec, to document the contemporary Charlevoix landscape in 2021-2022, presented by Musée de Charlevoix and Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie, in collaboration with Loto-Québec.
Musée de Charlevoix and Rencontres, in collaboration with Loto-Québec, announce the selection of Chun Hua Catherine Dong to carry out a photography mission that will document the contemporary Charlevoix landscape in 2021-2022.
A Montreal visual artist of Chinese origin, Chun Hua Catherine Dong uses performance, photography and video in her work. In 2015 she began the travel-based performance I Have Been There, which she aims to continue in the framework of her mission in Charlevoix. The artist has carried out this performance in 13 countries, 33 cities and more than 200 different places.
“During the residency, I will use Chinese embroidered fabric to make a duvet,” she explains. “As a way of engaging with Charlevoix’s unique landscapes and cultures, I will lie on the ground of forests, river banks, historical sites and landmarks, covered by the duvet.” Her performance will be documented so as to produce a series of photos and 360º videos to be presented at Musée de Charlevoix, in 2022, and at Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie, in 2023.
Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s project is inspired by a tradition in her hometown in China. “When an elder dies, her daughters make duvets with silk fabrics to cover their deceased parent’s body. For me, as a person living alone in Canada without family and children, the question of who will bury me after I die sometimes bothers me. In response, I make my own duvets and perform this ritual publicly and repeatedly wherever I go to simultaneously celebrate death and my own existence.”
In a time where travel has been difficult, the artist has felt it right to return to nature, here in Québec, a place she calls home. “Through inserting my body into Québec’s landscape, I hope this work opens conversations about immigration, home and belonging, questioning how we continue to see ourselves in each other, and how we work together to present a contemporary Québec that is grounded in the inclusiveness and equality that we all deserve, regardless of race and culture.” More information on the artist: chunhuacatherinedong.com
This project is the fourth contribution to a long-term photographic mission that will cover the entirety of the Québec landscape between now and 2024-2025. Through this mission, Rencontres is also seeking to establish a national photo archive collection devoted to the Québec landscape.
Contemporary Art in the Public Space – CAFKA Biennial
CAFKA Biennial -Contemporary Art in the Public Space
Date: May 27-June 27, 2021
Location: Various bus shelters, ION stations, and billboards throughout Waterloo Region and Cambridge
I am very pleased to announce that my work “I Have Been There” is presented by CAFKA – Contemporary Art Forum Kitchener. Nine pieces of 47”x68′ and six pieces of 48”x70” photographs are exhibited at various ION stations and bus shelter stations in Waterloo region. Two pieces of 10ft x20ft billboards are installed in different locations in Waterloo.
Chun Hua Catherine Dong presents “I Have Been There,” an on-going public intervention performance that explores belonging, diaspora, and existence in public spaces. Each time Dong travels to a new place, she creates a beautiful duvet with Chinese traditional embroidered silk fabric. Covered by the duvet, she lies on the ground in front of historical sites, landmarks, tourist attractions, and other significant places or events around the world. She repeats this performance as a poetic expression of her diasporic identity and engagement with different cultures and spaces. Working within the gap between body as image and body as experienced reality, Dong uses her body as a primary material in her work, creating visual narratives that enable audiences to experience performance unexpectedly and directly in public spaces. She started this performance in 2015, and has performed in 15 countries, 33 cities, and over 250 different sites.
For a local press, TheRecord’s article about this work, please visit here
For more info about this work, please visit here
For more info about CAFKA Biennial, please visit here
This public art project is generously supported by the region of Waterloo.
Twelve Visionary Women Artists 2021_By Art Canada Institute
It is my great honour to be listed as one of Twelve Visionary Women Artists in Canada by Art Canada Institute for International Women’s Day 2021 . For more info about the list, please click here, or click the link below
“In honour of International Women’s Day next Monday, we are highlighting Canadian women artists across the country who have achieved outstanding accomplishments in their careers and paved the way for others to succeed in the art world. Taking a cue from this year’s IWD hashtag and theme—#ChoosetoChallenge—which celebrates women’s successes, promotes awareness against bias, and calls for action for equality, we are looking at works that show women reflecting on their place in the arts and in society and boldly confronting gender imparity. Although there is still much progress to be made, the selection below reveals how far women from diverse communities have come. It also highlights the crucial role of artists in imagining and shaping a more equitable world, one where we celebrate women’s independence, strength, and ambition.”
Sara Angel
Founder and Executive Director, Art Canada Institute
Capture Photography Festival
I am very excited to announce that my new work, ” The Misfits,” will be part of Capture Photography Festival in Vancouver 2021, presented by Richmond Art Gallery and Richmond Public Art Program. Please click here to see the Festival’s announcement. For more information about this work, please click here
Shaun Dacey, Director, Richmond Art Gallery states “It is an honour to work with Catherine on the Capture installation at Aberdeen station. The jury were excited about her proposal which speaks directly to Richmond’s Chinese residents and extends a 2D installation into augmented reality. We can’t wait to launch it in April 2021.”
Cultural Diversity Award in Visual Art
I am very pleased to announce that I am awarded the Cultural Diversity Award in Visual Art 2020, by The Conseil des arts de Montréal. Please visit here for more information.
Montréal, December 11, 2020 – The Conseil des arts de Montréal is pleased to announce the winners of the 2020 Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts Award. This award is given out in conjunction with the City of Montreal’s Prix d’excellence en arts visuels program, in partnership with the Contemporary Art Galleries Association (AGAC). Consisting of a $10,000 cash prize, the award goes to an artist from a diverse cultural community or a visible minority who is over the age of 40 and has more than five years of professional practice in Québec to their credit. The artist must have previously exhibited or participated in exhibitions in their country of origin, whether in Québec or outside the province. The award recognizes a visual arts approach or production presented in Montreal in the media of painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, etching or mixed media. It supports the strategic goals of the Conseil des arts de Montréal, for which an inclusive arts scene is a priority.
Screening -THEY at Chinese Women Artists Video Art Festival
Screening: THEY
Festival: Chinese Women Artists Video Art Festival in Mexico City
Date: Feb 2- 7, 2021
THEY
The film available upon request
2017
29’20
Ellas es una instalación cinematográfica de cuatro canales que lleva al público al mundo de cuatro mujeres para examinar de cerca su vida cotidiana ritualizada, sus obsesiones, sus luchas y sus determinaciones de ser quienes son. Las cuatro mujeres son diferentes, pero se reflejan entre sí: se enfrentan a transiciones difíciles, relaciones ambivalentes y deseos que las perturban mientras celebran sus propias existencias de una manera subversiva pero casi meditativa. “Ellas” en esta película son tanto singulares como plurales, refiriéndose a las mujeres como individuos únicos que son plurales, pero cuyos cuerpos han sido marcados como el otro.
Mi enfoque del tema en esta película está subrayando los cuerpos de las mujeres como un sitio para la transgresión y resistencia social y política. Mediante el uso de gestos simbólicos, ritmos poéticos y repeticiones, esta película revela una reflexión compleja sobre cómo las identidades están mediadas no solo a través de las pantallas sino cómo nos llegan a través del tiempo. Esta instalación se basa en tradiciones cinematográficas y de performance, esforzándose por crear nuevas narrativas visuales que permitan al público experimentar la dimensión temporal del cuerpo directamente, al mismo tiempo, proporcionando una clave para comprender el poder corporal en la era digital.
For more info about the work, please visit here
For more about the Festival, please visit here