Gender – Chun Hua Catherine Dong

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.

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

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