Solo Exhibition – TRUCK Contemporary Art

Exhibition: May 27 – July 2, 2022
Gallery: TRUCK Contemporary Art
Address: 2009 10 Ave SW, Calgary, AB, T3C 0K4
Opening Reception:May 27, 2022 – 6 PM to 10 PM (M:ST)
Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Saturday – 1 PM to 6 PM (M:ST)
Artist Talk: June 3, 2022

Featuring virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), 3D-printed sculptures, video, and performance photographs, At the Edge of Two Worlds explores new digital possibilities for bridging gaps between memories and experiences, whilst mediating culture and identity through the lens of gender and diaspora. It speaks to the ways in which gender is explored, lost, created and re-created, and how digital diasporic experiences have shaped the notion of home and self with the rise of digitalization and globalization. In the space of digital experimentation and representation, Dong blurs the boundaries of two worlds: here and there, actual and virtual, culture and nature, human and animal. Futures are envisioned, which dissolve binaries and borders, creating a new social relation that sustains different ways of living and diverse beings as an act of survival.

For more info about this exhibition, please visit TRUCK Contemporary Art’s website

 

 

Group Exhibition – Doris McCarthy Gallery

Exhibition: May 5 – June 25, 2022
Gallery: Doris McCarthy Gallery
University of Toronto Scarborough
1265 Military Trail
Toronto, ON, M1C 1A4

Now You See Me is an exhibition that brings together artists who consider the power dynamics of image-making through their distinct practices. Dayna Danger, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Gaëlle Elma, Leila Fatemi, Kablusiak, Meryl McMaster, and Vivek Shraya variously identify as women, femme, and non-binary, and use photography to explore issues related to gender and cultural identity.

Employing tactics of performing, concealing, and revealing their bodies and those of their collaborators, the artists produce works that challenge normative, colonial assumptions. They address pressing political realities that are closely tied to their personal histories, and reveal paradoxes inherent in representations of racialized bodies. Although the works in the exhibition are generated from different perspectives and experiences, they share a reckoning with the historical and contemporary uses of the camera as a tool to perpetuate degradative narratives. Asserting themselves as directors of their own images, the artists pose questions about the complex cultural and gender-related politics that underlie self-representation, shifting perceptions of the politics that inform image-making with sharp critique and blatant defiance, while kicking the door open for new stories and conversations.

 

‘Now You See Me’ is curated by Sandy Saad-Smith and is a Core Exhibition in the 2022 CONTACT Photography Festival. 

For more information, see https://dorismccarthygallery.utoronto.ca/…/now-you-see-me

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.

Solo Exhibition – Gallery 101

Exhbition: Feburary 12, – March 12, 2022
In-person vernissage: Saturday February 12, 2:00-5:00 PM
Artist talk (online): Tuesday February 22, 7:00 PM
Gallery: Gallery 101
Address: 280 Catherine Street, Ottawa K1R 5T3

Featuring VR, performance photographs, video, and neon and 3D-printed sculpture, this exhibition explores new digital possibilities for bridging gaps between memories and experience, and mediating contemporary culture with rich traditions preserved from Dong’s Chinese roots. In the space of digital experimentation and representation, Dong blurs boundaries of here and there, then and now, and the binaries of gender, merging states of being so close yet so far away.

This exhibition consists of five works:
“Reconnection,” performance photograph, 2021, 32”x 48”
“Mulan,” 2022. VR
“Becoming Fenghuang,” 2022, vidoe, 5:12 minutes.
“I am A Rainbow,” 2019, neon sign
“When I Was Born, My Father Said I Was Just Another Mouth to Feed,” 2021 – on going, 3D printed sculptures

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

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.

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

Copyright Chun Hua Catherine Dong 2025. All Rights Reserved.