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.

Group Exhibition – rames narratives / Storylines

Exhibition:  Trames narratives / Storylines
Gallery: Centre d’exposition L’Imagier
Date: May 24 – July 28, 2019
Opening: May 24 at 6:00pm
address: 9, Front St., Gatineau (Aylmer), Quebec, Canada

In addition to present my photographic work, ” Skin Deep,” I will present a performance, ” Come Home” at the opening, start at 5:00pm

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The Centre d’exposition L’Imagier is pleased to present Trames narratives / Storylines, the very first exhibition presented in its new building.

The opening will be held on Friday, May 24th, 6 p.m., at Centre d’exposition L’Imagier, 9, Front St., Gatineau (Aylmer).

The inaugural exhibition of the new L’Imagier seeks to showcase a multiplicity of practices and perspectives by bringing together six curators: Katarzyna (Kasia) Basta, Marianne Breton, Paul Brunet, Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Stefan St-Laurent and Julie Tremble. Artists Chun Hua Catherine Dong, David Elliott, Kablusiak, Kim Kielhofner, Carl Trahan, Jennifer Lefort and Mélanie Myers present discourses, experiences and stories weaving different narrative layers. By promoting the sharing of artistic visions, knowledge and interests, the exhibition fosters dialogue.

Guided by the notion of narration, the curators present artists whose works testify to their genesis, the experience of the artist or the observation of society. The works of various artistic mediums – photography, drawing, collage, sculpture and performance – are highlighted both in their differences and in their common filiations. While some appear closer to reality, others appeal more freely to fiction. Blurring the boundaries between the real and the imaginary, the exhibition promotes a contact with a plurality of truths.

For more info

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Trames narratives / Storylines
Le Centre d’exposition L’Imagier est heureux de vous présenter Trames narratives / Storylines, la toute première exposition présentée dans son nouvel espace.

Le vernissage se déroulera le vendredi 24 mai 2019, à 18 h, au Centre d’exposition L’Imagier situé au 9, rue Front, Gatineau (secteur Aylmer).

L’exposition inaugurale du nouveau Centre d’exposition L’Imagier cherche à mettre en valeur une multiplicité de pratiques et de points de vue en réunissant six commissaires : Katarzyna (Kasia) Basta, Marianne Breton, Paul Brunet, Marie-Hélène Leblanc, Stefan St-Laurent et Julie Tremble. Ceux-ci présentent les artistes Chun Hua Catherine Dong, David Elliott, Kablusiak, Kim Kielhofner, Carl Trahan, Jennifer Lefort et Mélanie Myers, qui offrent aux visiteurs des discours, des expériences, des récits tissant différentes couches narratives. En favorisant le partage de visions artistiques, de connaissances et d’intérêts, l’exposition se veut un lieu de dialogue.

Guidés par la notion de narration, les commissaires ont sélectionné des artistes dont les œuvres témoignent de leur genèse, de l’expérience de l’artiste ou de l’observation de la société. Les œuvres de diverses disciplines artistiques – la photographie, le dessin, le collage, la sculpture et la performance – sont mises en lumière tant dans leurs différences que leurs filiations communes. Si certaines apparaissent plus proches de la réalité, d’autres font appel plus librement à la fiction. Ces croisements entre le réel et l’imaginaire, au sein de l’exposition, favorisent un contact avec une vérité plurielle. For more info

 

NCY Feminist Film Week at Anthology Film Archives

I am very please to announce that my video ” Everywhere and All at Once” will be screened at NCY Feminist Film Week at Anthology Film Archives in New York City on March 10, 2019

Program: Object Subject, curated by Maya Suess
Time: 6:00pm
Address: Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Avenue (at 2nd St.)
New York, NY 10003 USA

For this program, a visual and auditory exploration of the tactile, the viewers will be invited as they enter the cinema to select an object to hold for the duration of the screening. We are material creatures who encounter the tangible world through our physical senses, and we get to know our environment and ourselves through tactile experiences. Objects help us contextualize ourselves in the world, they bring us together, they help us express thoughts and ideas, they define us. This program presents works by visual artists, performance artists, and filmmakers exploring ideas of family, community, self, and sexuality through the objects around them.

For more info about NCY Feminist Film Week, please check here
For more info about Anthology Film Archives, please check here

Group Exhibition – Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us, at Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, Toronto

My group exhibition, Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us, is held at  Justina M. Barnicke Gallery at Museum of University of Toronto on Sept 6 – Oct 29, 2017

Far and Near: the Distance(s) between Us brings together several generations of Canadian artists of Chinese descent, offering perspectives onto the Chinese Canadian community’s historical and cultural evolutions and developments. The works included in the exhibition investigate overlooked narratives by exploring notions of distancing and being distanced in relation to race, identity, sexuality and their intertwining with Chinese Canadian history.

The idea of distance unfolds in multiple layers: in the geographic sense, as in going through a distance from point A to point B, like the construction process of the Canadian Pacific Railway; in the cultural sense, through the mainstream’s imposition of stereotypes, as in how the Chinese Canadian community has been culturally differentiated and essentialized; and in the context of the Chinese community itself, as in who is “Us”, and the distances between different groups of ethnic Chinese.

Exhibition Date:  Sept 6 – Oct 29, 2017
Opening: Wednesday, September 6, 2017
Address: Justina M. Barnicke Gallery,  7 Hart House Cir, Toronto, ON M5S 3H3
Curated by Henry Heng Lu

For more info about the exhibition 

Publication – Red, Green, Blue ≠ White

I am pleased to announce that Red, Green, Blue ≠ White includes my two works that were exhibited at Blackwood Gallery in 2013.

Red, Green, Blue ≠ White is the catalog produced for the 2013 exhibition at the Blackwood of the same name. Curated by Johnson Ngo, then-Curator-in-Residence at the Blackwood Gallery, the exhibition brought together eight artists exploring the the intersections of colour theory and contemporary race and identity politics. Included in this publication are commissioned essays and artist projects that depart from that 2013 exhibition, reflecting on notions of performativity, hybridity, and intersectionality.

Curator/Editor: Johnson Ngo
Writers: Emelie Chhangur and Francisco-Fernando Granados

For more info about the publication
For more info about the exhbition 

Group Exhibition – Mother Tongue at Varley Art Gallery in Markham

My Group Exhibition,  Mother Tongue, is held at Varley Art Gallery in Markham, Ontario on May 13 – September 4, 2017
Exhibition Date: May 13 – September 4, 2017
Opening: May 13th 6:00pm-9:00pm
Addess: 216 Main Street Unionville, Markham, Ontario L3R 2H1

Language is a universal and abstract system of sounds and symbols. Yet, the social, political and cultural contexts in which a language is spoken greatly affects its development and usages. In ever increasingly globalized societies, our sociolinguistic identity is not often singular.  The language we speak at home, or learned as a child – our mother tongue – may not be the same one used in our everyday lives. Mother Tongueinvites us to consider the complex relationships that exist between language and identity; how it defines who we are and how it can inform visual artistic practice.

For more info

La Biennale de Quebec – Manif D’art 8

My work,  ” Husbands and I,” will be exhibited at La Biennale de Quebec in Feb 17 – May 14, 2017

Exhibition Date: Feb 17 –  May 14, 2017
Opening: Feb 19 at 3:00pm
Address: 2 rue Cremazie Est, Quebec, CA

Husbands and I is a social performance wherein I navigate my own relationship to Western culture through one-minute and one-day relationships with white men. I started the “Husbands and I” performance in 2009 in Vancouver, where I wore a traditional Chinese dress and asked white males on streets to have photo taken with me by suggesting them to be my husbands for a minute. I have had photos with 325 men. In 2010, I posted classified advertisements describing myself as “an exotic, compliant and artistic Asian girl looking for a white husband who would like to take me to his home to live with him for a day as his mail order bride,” and recorded videos of my experiences living for one day with each ad respondent.

For more info about the Biennale
For more info about one-minute husbands
For more info about one-day husbands
For more info about the installation at Museum of University of Toronto, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, and PAVED Art

Group Exhibition- What Remains at Gallery Gachet in Vancouver

My group exhibition will be held at Gallery Gachet in Vancouver Jan 13th – Mar 12th, 2017

Exhibition Date: Jan 13th – Mar 12, 2017
Opening: Jan 13th 6:00pm-9:00pm
Address: 88 east Cordova Street Vancouver  BC

What Remains is comprised of the work of four artists who contend with conditions of identity through unique and varied means. This multimedia exhibition incorporates dialogical performance highlighting resistance to a gendering and racializing gaze formed on Eurocentric constructions of identity politics. Sincere, experiential, embodied works from the following artists will be featured: Afuwa, Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Marbella Anne Carlos and Jordan Martin.

The artists’ performances relate to moments of their lived experience as they consider what remains after the performance —placeholders for future engagements with a gallery audience. The residue of performance includes video, photography, physical objects and other remnants —elements that can only linger as memory. This exhibition will focus on the importance of performance as process that decenters value constructs placed upon the art object. In this case, these processes are not concerned with success tied to a commercial market of production. The work presented is a culmination of the everyday experiences generously shared by the artists, held and supported by the gallery.

For more about the exhbition

 

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