Canadian contemporary art – Chun Hua Catherine Dong

Solo Exhibition – articule

I am very pleased to announce that I made a brand new body of works currently exhibiting at article in Montreal.

Solo Exhibition: I Wonder How I Wonder Why
Gallery: articule
Address: 6282 St-Hubert,Montréal, Québec, Canada H2S 2M2
Date: November 1 – December 14, 2024
Opening reception: November 1, 5-8pm

Dong transforms a scientific laboratory into an imaginative stage where the boundaries of gender, power, and social control are redefined. Through a blend of VR video, animation, light, 3D-printed sculptures, and ready-made objects, Dong combines elements of scientific presentation with childhood memories, creating an immersive, sensory-rich experience both experimental and personal.

Drawing on early encounters with Western culture while growing up in China, Dong uses the song “Lemon Tree”, by the German band Fool’s Garden, as a symbolic, aspirational fantasy of Western life: bright, carefree, and filled with promise. For Dong, this fantasy was shaped through cultural exports like music, media, and fashion, offering an idealized, unattainable version of the West. In this project, Dong bridges the gap between the imagined promises of Western life and the complex realities of growing up in the East, transforming bittersweet childhood memoirs into acts of resistance and empowerment.

Dong uses the laboratory as a metaphorical site where fantasies are deconstructed, reassembled, and transformed. The lab becomes a space of transformation – not simply for scientific experimentation, but for challenging cultural constructs, reimagining identity, and crossing geographic and ideological boundaries. “I Wonder How I Wonder Why” is a space where East and West, science and imagination, reality and fantasy intersect, inviting reflection on how personal and cultural narratives shape our understanding of ourselves and the world, and how these narratives can open new possibilities for self-expression.

Times Square Arts –Mulan

I am very pleased to announce that my VR work, Mulan, will be screening at Times Square, NYC, on 95 large billboard digital screens from 41 to 49 street, August 1 -31, 2024, presented by Times Square Arts and Galerie Charlot Paris

For more about “Mulan” at Times Square Art, please visit here

For more info about “Mulan”, please visit my website link here.

A video-based work created through virtual reality, Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s Mulan reimagines the legendary Chinese folk heroine of the same name to explore gender and the plasticity and plurality of the body. Inspired by ancient Chinese storytelling, performance traditions, and marine biology, Dong used 3D VR tools to create an imaginary aquatic fantasy world where Mulan disguises her identity and gender, in order to coexist and become one with the nudibranch — a colorful deep-sea organism with striking forms, unique defenses, and ambiguous gender identities. Ultimately Mulan becomes not only a hybrid being, but a part of the surrounding marine ecosystems. Donning the protagonist in a colorful Beijing Opera costume and staging her on the rainbow-hued nudibranch, Dong proposes the pluralities within this folk character, and challenges historically male-dominated theater traditions.

Mulan was created in collaboration with Kudo Albus, a digital artist in Shanghai.

“Through performative gestures and expressions, I re-interpret Mulan from a feminist perspective. This work also raises questions about the binary system, about how to merge the boundaries of self/other, culture/nature, and human/animal, creating a new social relation that supports different ways of living and diverse beings in order to sustain and survive.” — Chun Hua Catherine Dong

Chun Hua Catherine Dong (she/they) is a Chinese-born Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal-based multimedia artist. Dong’s artistic practice is based in performance art, photography, video, VR, AR, and 3D printing within the contemporary context of global feminism. Body is political. Dong began their artistic career as a performance artist. Working within the gap between body as image and body as experienced reality, Dong uses the body—often their own body— as a visual territory in their work and a primary material to activate social commentary on gender, identity, and immigration. By encapsulating these global issues in microcosm or magnifying personal predicaments until they become universally visible, Dong presents the body as an embodiment of dynamic human relations, locating themselves at the nexus of author, artwork and audience.

Dong received an MFA in Intermedia from Concordia University and a BFA at Visual Art from Emily Carr University Art & Design in Canada. Dong has exhibited their works at The International Digital Art Biennial Montreal (BIAN), The International Biennial of Digital Arts of the Île-de-France (Némo), MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image, Kaunas Biennial, The Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in France, Quebec City Biennial, Foundation PHI for Contemporary Art, Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, Museo de la Cancillería in Mexico City, The Rooms Museum, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, DongGong Museum of Photograph in South Korea, He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, Hubei Museum of Fine Art in Wuhan, The Aine Art Museum in Tornio, Bury Art Museum in Manchester, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Hamilton, and more.

Valérie Hasson-Benillouche founded Galerie Charlot in 2010 with the aim to champion innovative practices in contemporary art. Attentive to artistic experimentation, Galerie Charlot develops a reflection on the relationship between art, technology and science.Through its pioneering attitude, Valérie Hasson-Benillouche has created a space dedicated to contemporary art where her expertise in the world of digital art brings together artists, collectors and scientists. The gallery’s calendar is punctuated by conferences and performances around digital art and its place in contemporary art. It exhibits emerging, mid-career and established artists.Partnerships with galleries, institutions and curators are key points to develop the gallery’s international influence, as well as participation in festivals, off-site exhibitions, round tables and fairs in Paris, Basel, Brussels and New York, among others.

Partner of the Nemo Festival, member of the Arcadi jury, and Laguna Price Venezia, Valérie has been part of the SIGGRAPH Paris Reflection Committee and participates in various conferences, including those held at Elektra-Montreal, ArtBrussel, and Ars Electronica-Linz. She develops specific projects with companies such as Hermes, Société Générale, Audemars Piguet, Oddo Bank, C21 Hotels, and Shiseido. She is also a member of the CPGA and is on the committee of the FHDN Foundation and the Digital Humanities Foundation.Valérie and her team are dedicated to the development of digital art as a major art form, an essential part of contemporary art.

Support for Midnight Moment is provided in part by the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council; and the Times Square Advertising Coalition.

Midnight Moment is made possible by the Times Square Advertising Coalition, ABC SuperSign, American Eagle, Big Outdoor, Branded Cities, Clear Channel, Coca-Cola, Diversified, Express, Heritage Outdoor Media, Levi’s, LG, Line Friends, McDonald’s, Microsoft, Midtown Financial, Morgan Stanley, New Tradition, Outfront, Paramount, Prudential, Sensory Interactive, Sephora, Sherwood Equities, Show + Tell, Silvercast, Swatch, TSX, and T-Mobile.

Public Art – Place des arts

I am very pleased to announce that I have been selected to create public art project for 35 vidoe screens at Espace Culturel Georges-Emile-Lapalme at Place des Arts in Montreal in 2024. This work is supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec and place des arts.

Exhibiton date: 7:00am – 11:00pm, June 19 – October 19, 2024
Address: place des arts
175 Sainte-Catherine Street West
Montreal, Quebec H2X 3X5

for the announcement at the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, please visit here.

for the announcement at place des arts, please visit here.

Exhibition – Ottawa Art Gallery

I am very pleased to announce that my performance photograph “Unmask Opera,” 3D printed sculpture,” Gold Girl,” and ” Phoenix Crown” are exhibiting at Ottawa Art Gallery. For more about this exhibition, please visit here

Through the Ground Glass¹is a dialogue between the work of historical Ottawa photographer William James Topley and six contemporary artists: Lori Blondeau, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Anique Jordan, Neeko Paluzzi, Adrian Stimson and Geneviève Thauvette. These artists engage with image manipulation, hauntology, costumes and theatricality to subvert narratives and reclaim power through portraiture.

Topley’s use of the composite technique (akin to cut-and-paste collage) demonstrates photography’s ability to craft powerful narratives. Similarly, the contemporary artists in this exhibition harness the principle of this technique to resist, reconstruct and critique, in order to catalyze new realities.

International Digital Art Biennale Montreal

I am very pleased to announce that I will participate International Digital Art Biennale Montreal this year. I am presenting “Skin Deep”, a photographic series with augmented reality (AR).

Where: Arsenal Contemporary Art Montreal
Date: May 31 – July 21, 2024
Address: 2020 William St, Montreal, Quebec H3J 1R8
Opening: May 30, 2024, 7:00 -10:00pm

For more info about the Biennale, please visit here
For more info about “Skin Deep” at my website, please visit here

Presented by ELEKTRA since 2012, the International Digital Art Biennial is back for a 7th edition from May 31 to July 21, 2024 in collaboration with Arsenal contemporary art Montreal. The Biennale ELEKTRA is the largest exhibition dedicated to digital art in North America.

It is under the theme ILLUSION that it presents a reflection on our post-factual, post-truth and alternative reality era, a subject that is shaking up the news. Indeed, the proliferation of digital communication technologies and tools from artificial intelligence (AI) contribute to disinformation, notably deep fakes. We can already measure the serious consequences of this denial of reality on the lives of billions of people on our planet. This 7th Biennial is intended, once again, to reflect our societies, which are increasingly enveloped and infiltrated by digital technology.

Curated by Alain Thibault, more than thirty artists from three continents are brought together in a unique way. Under the theme ILLUSION, certain installations will reflect this idealized parallel life in the Metaverse while leading the public to question the very concept of reality and simulation. Thus, visitors are invited to question the existence of certain works, due to their ephemeral, immaterial or even invisible nature, and thus to refine their perception of reality or illusion in an increasingly enveloped and infiltrated society by digital.

Solo Exhibition – Galerie Charlot Paris

I am very pleased to announce that I am having a solo exhibition, The Flow, at Galerie Charlot in Paris from April 5 to May 25, 2024. I am showing my two recent projects, “ For You I Will Be An Island,” and ” Unmask Opera.” This exhibition includes performance photograph, photographs with AI component and augmented reality (AR), AI animation, and 3D printed sculptures.

Galery: Galerie Charlot
Date: April 5 – May 25, 2024
Address: 47 rue Charlot 75003 Paris – France
OPening: April 5, 2024, 6:00 -9:00pm

THE FLOW

Chun Hua Catherine Dong, originaire de Chine et établie au Canada, se distingue en tant qu’artiste pluridisciplinaire explorant des thématiques profondes telles que l’identité, la migration, le genre et le corps. Son travail s’exprime à travers une palette variée de médias, allant de la performance à la vidéo, en passant par la photographie et l’installation, pour susciter la réflexion et remettre en question les normes sociales et culturelles.

Elle joue avec les attentes de genre et navigue entre différentes identités, défiant ainsi les frontières physiques et psychologiques. Ses œuvres captent des instants intimes et troublants, révélant souvent des aspects négligés ou tabous de l’expérience humaine. À travers une mise en scène soigneusement élaborée et une manipulation habile de l’image, elle tisse des récits visuels captivants, invitant le spectateur à remettre en question ses propres perceptions sur des sujets tels que l’identité culturelle, le pouvoir et la marginalisation.

Engagée socialement, Chun Hua Catherine Dong utilise son art comme un moyen de sensibiliser le public aux problèmes contemporains et d’encourager le dialogue et le changement. Son travail incite à la réflexion et à une remise en question constructive de notre société.

Untitled Art Fair – with Galerie Charlot Paris

I am very pleased to announce that I will participate Untitled Art Fair, in Miami, represented by Galerie Charlot.

Date: December 6-10, 2023

For over thirteen years, Galerie Charlot has been a pioneer in the field of contemporary art, focusing on digital technologies that bring together science, art and technology. We work alongside artists who explore artistic creation through digital tools that challenge our perception and speculate on the future in contemporary art. For this edition, we propose a booth that highlights the work of four mid-career female artists from around the world: Chun Hua Catherine Dong (USA/China), Kika Nicolela (Brazil), Lauren Moffatt (Australia) and Sabrina Ratté (Canada). In line with this year’s theme «Curating in the post-digital age», Galerie Charlot’s booth will explore the trace – both material and immaterial – left by humans through today’s technologies.

Participating artists: Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Kika Nicole, Lauren Moffatt, Sabrina Ratte

For press release, please visit here.
For more about Galerie Charlot, please visit here.

Exhibition – Canadian Culture Centre Paris

I am very pleased to announce that I will participate a group exhibition “En d’infinies variations/Endless variations,” at Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, as part of Némo – Biennale internationale des arts numériques de la Région Île-de-France, curated by Catherine Bédard, Dominique Moulon, and Alain Thibault, produced by CENTQUATRE-PARIS, in partnership with Elektra (Montreal).

Date:

December 7, 2023 to April 19, 2024

Opening event:

December 6, 2023 at 18:00pm – 21:00pm

The world accelerated as one industrial revolution after another produced societal and aesthetic changes. It was in the 19^thcentury that the serial treatment of subjects became widespread in painting, as if to better grasp every aspect of them. In an age of unbridled use of artificial intelligence algorithms in industry and art alike, it is more appropriate to approach many works through their multiple versions. Increasingly, artists are literally collaborating with programs capable of generating their works in infinite variations. When the results are striking, it is up to them to interrupt the autonomous processes they had initiated. But what has been new in recent years is that we can all use such interfaces to, for example, refine our multiple online profiles. In this way, we have a certain closeness to the creations that come out of iterative or generative processes. This exhibition should be seen as a studio where the works are in the process of being made.

For more info about the exhibition, please visit here

participating artist: Nicolas Baier, Salomé Chatriot, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, George Legrady, Caroline Monnet, Oli Sorenson, Nicolas Sassoon, Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, Timothy Thomasson.

Solo Exhibition – Bannister Art Gallery

I am very pleased to announce that solo exhibition “Share Distance: Where the Links Flow” will be held at Bannister Art Gallery, Rhode Island Collage, Providence, USA

Date:

October 5 -27, 2024
Opening event:

October 7, 2023 at 4:00pm – 6:00pm

Featuring virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 3D-printed sculptures, video installation, and AI-generated visuals, Shared Distance: Where the Links Flow provides an insight into the recent creations of Chun Hua Catherine Dong, a multimedia artist based in Montreal. This exhibition takes viewers into a journey where art and technology collide, examining how digital diasporic experiences have shaped the notion of home and self with the rise of digitalization. The artist weaves the complexities of displacement, resilience, childhood memories, and the longing for connection into a thread that links geographic, cultural, and emotional distances, as well as bridges gaps between memories and experiences, the tangible and the virtual, and culture and nature through the lens of gender and the context of diaspora.

For more info about the exhibition, please visit here

Group Exhibition – Art Gallery of Hamilton

I am very pleased to announce that my work “Out of the Blue” is part of group exhibition, “WONDER: the Real, the Surreal, and the Fantastic,” curated by Tobi Bruce, at the Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, Ontario

Date:

September 23, 2023 – January 7, 2024
Opening event:October 12, 2023 at 7:00pm – 10:00pm

What is ‘reality’ today? What does it mean to be ‘real’? Is there even such a thing?In an age of reality shows, fake news, and weakened social and political structures, our sense of reality is quickly shifting. Neither fixed nor factual, our individual realities can exist alongside one another’s and never meet.

This moment in time led to the idea of creating an exhibition around the idea of reality and sur-reality, or in art terms: Realism, Surrealism and the Fantastic. This exhibition explores the relationship between a logical view of life and the unconscious mind, fantasies, and the dream world.

The artists in this show find magic in the unexpected and the unnatural, the overlooked and the odd. Their work challenges values and norms in search of new realities and freedom. Here, imagination is front and centre and driven by the psychological rather than the logical.

Organized by theme, the exhibition brings together works by historical and contemporary artists who reflect and reimagine the body and the everyday in staging new and provocative worlds.

For more info about the exhibition, please visit here