Chun Hua Catherine Dong – Chun Hua Catherine Dong

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.

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.

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.

Two Person’s Exhibition – Musée de Charlevoix

Two Person’s Exhibition: September 23, 2022 – April 30, 2023
Gallery: Musée de Charlevoix
Address: 210 Chem. du Havre, La Malbaie, QC G5A

MISSION PHOTOGRAPHIQUE CHARLEVOIX

Charlevoix a été le cadre d’une mission photographique destinée à documenter le paysage québécois. Depuis le passage dans la région du photographe d’origine hongroise, Gabor Szilasi, en 1970, qu’en est-il des paysages de Charlevoix ?

Un demi-siècle plus tard, une photographe professionnelle de la relève, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, en résidence dans la région, livre sa vision contemporaine et critique du paysage. Cette artiste née en Chine met en scène son propre corps et l’utilise en tant que monument humain.

Le contraste est frappant. En cinquante ans, la photographie a évolué à une vitesse fulgurante. Obtenus au terme d’un patient travail en chambre noire, les tirages argentiques de Gabor Szilasi ramènent à la vie une technique traditionnelle en voie de disparition, à l’image des espaces qu’il documente, équipé de son appareil à chambre 4 X 5 et de son Leika.

Pour ses créations, Chun Hua Catherine Dong utilise le plein potentiel de la photographie numérique, explorant les technologies de la vidéo 360 degrés et de la modélisation virtuelle dans des performances immersives d’avant-garde.

ette exposition est un concentré de la vaste récolte d’images de ces deux artistes, inspirés par le caractère unique d’une région rurale et de ses paysages mythiques.

For more info about the work I show at the Musée de Charlevoix, please visit here. For more about Musée de Charlevoix, please visit here

Solo Exhibition – New York

Exhibition: March 11 – April 2, 2022
In-person vernissage: Friday, March 11, , 6:00-9:00 PM
Artist talk (online): March 31, 2022, 6:30 PM
Gallery: Arcade Project Curatorial
Address: 56 Bogart, Brookyn, NY 11206

Cleavage refers to mitosis, a fundamental process for life. During mitosis, a cell duplicates all of its contents, including its chromosomes, and splits to form two identical daughter cells. Dong’s work explores the immigrant journey of identity: a splitting of the self into parts. The immigrant separates from their country of birth, entering their adopted country as the “other”. The immigrant becomes a person of two lands, not fully fitting in with either. When the immigrant returns to the land of their birth, they are not at home – they are visitors, tourists. The “home” that they hold as a memory is idealized in their mind. It doesn’t exist in the physical realm.

Skin Deep (2014-2020) 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. The series explores the concept of losing face in a series of photographic self-portraits, combined with an AR component, in which they conceal their face in traditional Chinese brocade silk fabrics that also comprise the background, signifying the loss of individual identity and absorption into a cultural identity.

Mulan (2022), a VR installation, inspired by the aesthetics of Beijing opera, splits the titular legendary heroine into two dueling warriors – shifting from singular to plural and back again. Mulan’s intense palette and undersea setting are references to Nudibranchs, colorful hermaphroditic mollusks that cannot self-fertilize and, despite having all the necessary equipment, require another to complete the reproductive cycle.

When I Was Born, My Father Said I Was Just Another Mouth to Feed, performance video (2010) and 3-D printed sculptures (2021), suggest that this cleavage of identity isn’t always complete: a ghost of the parents and their actions remains imprinted on the child. The bear’s four ears suggest a part of the child that has not completely separated. The bear’s pose is reminiscent of the prostration of both prayer and corporal punishment — a superimposed gesture of both hope and shame.

This exhibition has been made possible thanks to generous support from the Canada Council for the Arts.

Group Exhibition – He Xiangning Art Museum, Shenzhen, China

I am very pleased to announce my second museum exhibition in China is held at He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen. My four channel VR video installation, “Meet Me Halfway” is exhbited there.

Group Exhibition: In Working: Women In Art Practice
Museum: He Xiangning Art Museum
Exhibition date: December 29, 2021 – March 27, 2022
Address: He Xiangning Art Museum Hall 4-8, Shenzhen

For more info about this exhibition, please visit He Xiangning Art Museum

For more info about “Meet Me Halfway, please visit my website page here

Exhibition Supervisor: CAI Xianliang
Chief Exhibition Adviser: WANG Huangsheng
Curators: LI Beike, LIU Xiyan
Co-Curators: YU Xiangzhi, CHEN Zhuoer
Coordinators: CHENG Bin, FAN Ning
Public Education & Promotion: LUO Siying
Publicity: FANG Hua
Exhibition Assistants: DING Ziying, LIN Yue
Exhibition Design: WANG Yaxing, BREEZE Design

Artists: CHANG Yuchen, Chun Hua Catherine DONG, Gayle Chong KWAN, Alison KUO, Hua JIN, Serena LEE, Beili LIU, Duoni LIU, Susan Pui San LOK, Jennifer Wen MA, Yeu-Lai MO, SHEN Cai, Naormi Meijia WANG, Alice WANG, Yiy ZHANG, Linda ZHANG

As one of the serial events of “Culture China”, “The Overseas Chinese Artists Invitational Exhibition” has been officially hosted by the He Xiangning Art Museum annually since 2020, and has become one of the major academic projects thereafter. He Xiangning is an outstanding female artist in modern Chinese history, and the museum named after her has always maintained a strong focus on overseas Chinese art as well as female art. “In Working: Women in Art Practice – The 4th Overseas Chinese Artists Invitational Exhibition” takes a close look at the overseas Chinese female artists and attempts to explore the diversity and possibilities in today’s social works.

The focus of this year’s exhibition is that, in a history of production going through agriculture, industry and intellect, being productive forces of labor, female artists across the ages have done contribution physically, emotionally and intellectually. By investigating their artistic creations, this exhibition takes the public on a journey to rethink the efforts of overseas Chinese women in the new era for social development, cultural exchange and intellectual innovation in the context of globalization.

The exhibition invites 16 female artists who have lived overseas for a long time or have long been traveling between China and the abroad, to present their art practice till now in a multidimensional way, ranging from video recording, artistic expression to spatial reconstruction. Some of the artists celebrate women in the times with delicate and sensitive emotions, some explore the meaning of housework with keywords such as repetition and superposition, and some imagine the future with a vision beyond gender. These works demonstrate the overseas Chinese women’s observation, reflection and feelings on individual, collective, world, history and society.

Residency – International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), Brooklyn

I am very pleased to announce that I am in residence at International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Brooklyn, Oct 1 – Dec 30, 2021, supported by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec. For more info about this residency, please visit here

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.

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

Group Exhibition – Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us

Exhibition: Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us
Date: February 05th, 2020 – April 17th, 2020
Opening: February 4th, 2020 6-8pm
Gallery: Centre Culturel Canadien, Paris
Address: 130 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris

Produced by the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris as part of the official programme of Nemo, the Biennial of Electronic Arts Ile-de-France, in partnership with Elektra (Montreal) and with the support of Région Ile-de-France.

Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us is an exhibition that documents the world using the technologies that shape it. The works in the exhibition feature a large variety of styles: interactive devices that make us learn their playabilities, generative installations whose processes are entirely autonomous and digital creations made out of digital forms.

The concept of artificial intelligence emerged in the 1950s. It served as a vehicle for an imaginary world immediately adopted by science-fiction writers who endowed machines with the ability to “think”. In the 1980s, the idea that machines could themselves learn, by deduction, appeared. This is known as “machine learning”. Finally, since the turn of the millennium, the term “deep learning” has been used for the processing of vast quantities of data by computers.

We have taught everything to machines and continue to supply them so that they pursue the “desire” for autonomy we would like to grant them. Isn’t it time that we started thinking that we, too, learn from them by observing their specificities or qualities? If there is one community that observes the world to give us its interpretations of its transformations, it is the artistic community.

Artists have always made use of the tools and materials of their times. Thus, more and more of them are turning to the creative potential of digital technologies, which are also used by researchers in their laboratories. In doing so, they accept what the machines offer them while adding an element of unpredictability to their creations. Sometimes, they distance themselves from their works, which run so that their modes of actions may be observed better. Machines or robots are also the subjects of photographs or films that other artists produce to encourage new forms of empathy in us. It is not an application or a service that does not work as soon as it opens. From the special-effect filters of mass-market software to the networks of artificial neurones that artists share with researchers. They both learn and appropriate these technologies by rubbing shoulders with them.

We have a certain proximity with the works that emerge from the use and/or observation of the technologies that shape our relationship to the world, to others and to ourselves. Recognizing the technologies of our daily lives in an artistic context makes us envisage them differently. Knowing that it is through contact with others that we build ourselves, it is about time to think about the “mechanical” other we increasingly frequent without being too aware of it. Dedicating an exhibition to machines and ideas or the resulting aesthetics amounts to accepting their teachings.

Works by Matthew Biederman, Emilie Brout & Maxime Marion, Grégory Chatonsky, Douglas Coupland, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Emilie Gervais, Sabrina Ratté, David Rokeby, Justine Emard, Louis-Philippe Rondeau, Samuel St-Aubin, Skawennati, Xavier Snelgrove & Mattie Tesfaldet, with an exterior installation by Olivier Ratsi.

Guest curators: Dominique Moulon and Alain Thibault
Associated curator: Catherine Bédard

Exceptionally open on Saturday April 4, from 10am to 6pm for Paris Art Fair.

For more info about the work, please visit here
For more info about the exhibition, please visit hereand here

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