Chun Hua Catherine Dong
Inkjet photographic prints, 2017 Dimensions variable
Mother
Video, 8 min. 23 sec., 2017
Editing: Chun Hua Catherine Dong
Sound: Shane Turner
❝The body is political. Working within the gap between body as image and body as experienced reality, Chun Hua Catherine Dong uses the body—often her own—as a visual territory and a primary material to activate social commentary on gender, race, and immigration. By magnifying personal predicaments until they become universally visible, and thus encapsulating these global issues in microcosm, she presents the body as an embodiment of dynamic human relations, locating herself at the nexus of author, artwork and audience.
Dong’s artistic practice is based in performance art, photography, and video within the contemporary context of global feminism. Her work deals mainly with cultural intersections created by globalization and asks what it means to be a citizen of the world today. It opens dialogues about deterritorialization and ‘disessentialization’ in culture and how to transform socio-political landscapes through performative action. The gestures in her work are symbolic and metaphoric—at times subversive, meditative, subtle and/or humorous. They express her desire to transform everyday political life into art, as she strives to instill a model for social transformation.In Dong’s earlier works, the body represented ideological confrontation or political alienation. She developed the idea of representation as a political tool to give visibility to those made invisible by dominant ideologies. In her newer works, she views the body as a bridge connecting East and West, past and present, creating a new version of hybridity and striving to transcend and mend.
Dong writes on Mother:
‘Mother consists of 14 photographs and a video dedicated to my absent mother. Absence is a form of presence. After my mother passed away, I returned to my birthplace in China and found 14 mothers who were my mother’s close friends and relatives. I brought a pair of floral embroidered traditional Chinese shoes to each mother as a gift, because my mother always loved floral embroidered shoes. We took photographs together at each mother’s home, where the mother wore her new shoes and I wore her clothing. After taking photos with each mother, I invited them all to come together for a group portrait.
This work seeks consolation and restores narratives of the past through the visual expression of memories and loss, exploring relationship between life and death, human existence, and universal emotions. I use re-enactment as a method of revisiting and re-imagining the past to create scenarios of my mother visiting her birth place and meeting her childhood friends. By using my own body to present my mother’s gift, I reunite with my mother and become her. This work reveals how the mother/daughter relationship is experienced as a site of love and care, and how memories cross time and space to create a new experience that not only transcends life and death, bridges past and present, but also transforms emotions and realities. Mother is an embodiment of a melancholic longing for an unrecoverable past and a memento mori: a reminder of the inexorable passage of time and the beautiful transience of human life.’❞
CHUN HUA CATHERINE DONG
EDUCATION
2015 MFA, Concordia University, Montréal
2011 BFA, Emily Carr University Art & Design, Vancouver
SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2021 I Have Been There, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Hamilton, ON, Canada
2021 TBA, TRUCK Contemporary Art Gallery, Calgary, Canada
2021 TBA, Gallery 101, Ottawa, ON, Canada
2020 In Transition, Ottawa School of Art, Ottawa, Canada
2019 They, Le Lieu, centre en art actuel, Quebec City
2018 Age of Love, DongGang Museum of Photography, presented by DongGang l Photo Festival, South Korea
2018 The Drift Latitudes, Modern Fuel Artist-Run Centre, Kinston, ON
2018 The Transition, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal
2016 Visual Poetics of Embodied Shame, The New Gallery, Calgary
2016 Visual Poetics of Embodied Shame aceartinc. Winnipeg
2015 To Rebel is Justified, MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Montréal
2015 Visual Poetics of Embodied Shame, Hamilton Artists Inc. Hamilton
2015 The Surface, PAVED Arts, Saskatoon
2015 State of Grace, Harcourt House Artist-Run Centre, Edmonton
2014 Visual Poetics of Embodied Shame, VMU art gallery “101”, Kaunas, Lithuania
2014 Between Reality and Transcendence, Articule Artist Run Centre, Montreal
GROUP EXHIBITIONS, PERFORMANCES, SCREENINGS
2020 Human Learning. What Machines Teach Us. Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, Paris, as part of Biennial Nemo. Curated by Catherine Bédard, Dominique Moulon, and Alain Thibault
2020 Papier 2020, Montreal, Canada, presented by Patrick Mikhail Gallery
2019 The Life of Things, MOMENTA Biennale de I’image, Montreal, curated by Maria Wills
2019 Walking the Bridge, Museo de la Cancillería, Mexico City, curated by Elizabeth Rose
2019 Reunion, Grace Exhibition Space, Manhattan, New York City, USA
2019 To Begin, EAV Parque Lage, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2019 Temporary Garden, Snarte Space, NanChang, Jiangxi, China, curated by Elizabeth Ross and ChaiMi
2019 The Breadth of Distance, Humber Galleries, Toronto, CA, curated by Alize Zorlutuna
2019 Are You My Mother?, Dunlop Art Gallery, Regina, CA, curated by Jennifer Matotek
2019 Trames narratives / Storylines, Center L’Imagier, Quebec
2019 NYC Feminist Film Week, Anthology Film Archives, New York City. Curated by Maya Suess
2019 Satellite Art Show, Austin, Texas, presented by Performance is Alive, New York
2019 Queer City Cinema, Regina, Canada
2018 Once Per Annum, The Istanbul Cumhuriyet Art Gallery, Istanbul, Turkey
2018 The Wall, Museo De La Ciudad, Querétaro, Mexico
2018 Happy, Bury Museum, Manchester, UK
2018 Volta 14, Basel, Switzerland
2018 Changing Agent, Patrick Mikhail Gallery, Montreal, Canada
2018 Eminent Domain, Robert Miller Gallery, New York, presented by Art511 Magazine
2018 The Undocumented, Surry Art Gallery, Vancouver, CA, presented by Agenct C
2018 Sofia Arsenal – Museum for Contemporary Art, Sofia, Bulgaria
2018 Papier 2018, Montreal, Canada
2018 The Art of Redefining Gender, Montreal, presented by Art Souterrain, curated by Marie Perrault
2018 Sofia International Performance Art Festival, Sofia, Bulgaria
2018 La Buena Estrella, Mexico City, Mexico
2018 FestYin- Festival China Feminine, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2017 Sans Réserve, The Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne, France
2017 The Art of Joy, Manif d’art 8, Quebec City Biennale, Quebec City, CA
2017 Canada Day 1, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, Halifax, CA
2017 Mother Tongue, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Markham, CA
2017 Far and Near: The Distances Between us, Art Museum at University of Toronto, curated by Henry Heng Lu
2017 Where are you From?, Art Mur, Montreal, CA, curated by Veronique Leblanc
2017 Experimental Action|Performance Art, Houston, Texas, USA
2017 Inverse Performance Art Festival in San Luis Obispo, California, USA
2017 What Remains, Gallery Gachet, Vancouver
2017 The Sign, MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels), Montréal, CA
2017 Mother Tongue, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Markham, ON, Canada
2016 A Very Thin Line, The CERA Project, London, UK, curated by Ines Valle
2016 Paratissima Art Fair, presented by torinoPERFORMANCEART, Turin, Italy
2016 eX-centrico: dissidence, sovereignties, performance, Hemispheric Institute, Santiago, Chile
2016 Better Than the Alternative, Thomas Young Gallery, Boston, USA
2016 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art, Toronto
2016 A Fair Day’s Work, Nine Dot Gallery, Worcester, Massachusetts, USA
2016 Miami Performance International Festival, Miami, USA
2016 Visualeyez Performance Festival, Latitude 53, Edmonton, CA
2016 Yellow Umbrella—an Unfinished Conversation, Arsenal Contemporary Art, Montreal
2016 Nuit Blanche, Montreal, Canada
2016 The Crust of Soul, Fernando Pradilla Gallery, Madrid, Spain, curated by Dr. Beth Moyses
2016 Duration & Dialogue Performance Art Festival/ Symposium, Katzman Contemporary, Toronto
2016 Yellow Umbrella – An Unfinished Conversation, Islington Mill, Manchester, UK
2016 Women Video Art, Hao Space, Beijing, China, curated by Elizabeth Ross
2016 No Todo Es Fragilidad, Sechiisland’s Mircro Gallery, Sao Paulo, Brazil, curated by Silvio De Gracia
2015 SELECT Art Fair, New York, presented by The Franklin Furnace
2015 Now&After, The Schusev State Museum of Architecture, Moscow, Russia. Curated by Silvio De Gracia
2015 The Great American Performance Art, Grace Exhibition Space, New York
2015 Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival, Chicago
2015 The Embodiment Ball, ABC No Rio, New York, cureated by EstherR Neff
2015 Hide and Seek, Fusion Art Gallery, Torino, Italy, curated by Manuela Macco and Guido Salvini
2015 Performancy Forum Conference, Grace Exhibition Space, New York
2015 The Emotional Architecture of the Body, Songs For Presidents, New York, curated by Frances Cooper
2015 Chinese Women Artists Video Art Festival, Mexico City, Mexico, curated by Elizabeth Ross
2015 When I was Born, Voyage 4, KUNSTKRAFTWERK, Leipzig, Germany
2014 Grace Exhibition Space, Brooklyn, New York
2014 Through the Body, CONTACT Photography Festival, University of Toronto Art Centre, Toronto
2014 ENCUENTRO—Choreographing Social Movement in the Americas, PHI Centre, Montreal
2014 Dublin Live Art Festival, Dublin, Ireland
2014 Almost 3, The Others Art Fair, Turin, Italy, curated by Manuela Macco and Guido Salvini
2014 Creative Zone- Baroque Visual and Hybrid Art, Gera Museum, Vrsac, Serbia.
2014 I Want to Smell You Hair, New Art Center, Boston
2014 Art Chennai, Contemporary Art Festival, Chennai, India
2014 The Double, Place des Arts, Montreal
2014 M:ST Performative Festival, Truck Contemporary Art Gallery, Calgary
2014 FUSE – Revolution Counter Revolution, Vancouver Art Gallery, Curated by Paul Wong, Vancouver
2014 Media X: Subversive Revolution, White Water Gallery, Canada
2013 UNITEXT, Kaunas Biennial, National Museum of M. K. Čiurlionis, Kaunas, Lithuania
2013 Import/Export, Aine Art Museum, Tornio, Finland
2013 Delhi Photo Festival, Open Palm Court Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Delhi, India
2013 Red, Green, Blue ≠ White, Blackwood Gallery, Mississauga. Curated by Johnson Ngo
2013 Labyrinth, Nuit Blanche, Art Souterrain, Montreal
2013 torinoPERFORMANCEART, Performance Art International Festival, Turin, Italy
2013 Infr’Action Venice Festival, Venice, Italy.
2013 INTERNATIONALES FESTIVAL FÜR PERFORMANCE, zeitraumexit e.V., Mannheim, Germany
2012 INSIDER/OUTSIDER, The LPA Gallery, Waltham, MA, United States. Curated by Sandrine Schaefer
2012 IGNITION 8, Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, Montreal. Cutrated by Véronique Leblanc
2012 M:ST 6 Performative Festival, Untitled Arts Society, Calgary
2012 Hourglass, Helen Christou Gallery, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge
2011 Fleeting Glance: Fast& Dirty, The Shoreditch Gallery, London, UK. Curated by Kristen Hutchinson
2011 1<3<CANDA, 221A Artist Run Centre, Vancouver. Curated by Francisco-Fernando Granados
2011 SPREAD, Chapel Arts, Vancouver. Curated by Matt Troy
2010 A Night of Translation, The Western Front, Vancouver. Curated by Emilio Rojas
2010 VIVO 2010: Safe Assembly, VIVO Media Arts Centre,Vancouver
2010 Slivers, Shivers, and Snake Skin- A Happening, Chapel Arts, Vancouver. Curated by Zarah Acheman
2009 LOW, 221A Artist Run Centre, Vancouver
2008 Chinese Culture Centre, Vancouver
GRANTS & AWARDS
2020 Finalist, Prix en art actuel du MNBAQ, Le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec
2019 Concept to Realization Grant, Canada Council for the Arts Canada
2019 Research and Creation Grant, Canada Council for the Arts Canada
2019 Research and Creation Grant in Visual Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, Canada
2019 Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2019 Travel Grant, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, Qubec, Canada
2018 Research and Creation Grant, Canada Council for the Arts Canada
2018 Research and Creation Grant in Visual Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, Canada
2018 Artist of the Year, DongGang International Photo Festival, Gangwon-do, Korea
2018 Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2017 Canada Council Project Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2017 Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2016 Research and Creation Grant in Visual Arts, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec
2016 Canada Council Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2016 Travel Grant, the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Quebec, Canada
2015 Canada Council Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2014 The Franklin Furnace Award, The Franklin Furnace Fund, Unite States
2014 Canada Council Travel Grant, Canada Council for the Arts, Canada
2014 Faculty of Fine Art Travel Grant, Faculty of Fine Art, Concordia University, Canada
2014 Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Fellowship in Contemporary Art, shortlist, Montreal, Canada
2013 Graduate Students Mobility Award, Concordia University, Canada
2013 Faculty of Fine Art Travel Grant, Faculty of Fine Art, Concordia University, Canada
2012 SSHRC, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council Canada, Canada
2012 Michael-Smith Foreign Study Scholarship, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council Canada
2012 Faculty of Fine Arts Fellowship, Concordia University, Canada
2012 BC Arts Council Scholarship, British Columbia Arts Council, Canada
2011 Faculty of Fine Arts Fellowship, Concordia University, Canada
2011 BC Arts Council Scholarship, British Columbia Arts Council, Canada
2010 Brissenden Award, Brissenden Foundation, Canada
2010 BC Arts Council Scholarship, British Columbia Arts Council, Canada
2009 Jack Harman Memorial Award, Jack Harman Foundation, Canada
2008 Helen Pitt Award, Helen Pitt Foundation, Vancouver, Canada
