Often called the Mother River of China, the Yangtze bordered Chun Hua Catherine Dong’s childhood as she grew up along its shores. Having left her native country behind, Dong seeks to reconcile her memories and future visions of that landscape, now distant in both time and space. She employed generative AI to produce images of her home city in the future, the results showing waves crashing against the shores and flooded buildings. Behind these unreal images is the reality that the annual floods the Yangtze has experienced for centuries, which have proved devastating time and time again, have worsened in recent decades.

During one of her trips to China, Dong anchored her body in the present moment next to objects from her childhood and these menacing visions of the future. Souvenirs from her life with her now-deceased mother, along with food her mother once prepared, are juxtaposed with images of a nourishing yet chaotic river. Deeply attached to these original waters, Dong positions herself, before ruins of the past and future, as an island occupied by hopes for a more habitable world, along with the rituals and gestures that must be made to achieve it.

 

An exhibition presented in collaboration with Mois Multi.

 

Biography

Chun Hua Catherine Dong (she/they) is a Chinese-born Tiohtià:ke/ Montréal-based multimedia artist. Dong received an MFA at Intermedia from Concordia University and a BFA at Visual Art from Emily Carr University Art & Design in Canada. Dong has exhibited their works at The International Digital Art Biennial Montreal (BIAN),  The International Biennial of Digital Arts of the Île-de-France (Némo), MOMENTA | Biennale de l’image, Kaunas Biennial, The Musée d’Art Contemporain du Val-de-Marne in France, Quebec City Biennial, Foundation PHI for Contemporary Art, Canadian Cultural Centre Paris, Museo de la Cancillería in Mexico City, The Rooms Museum, Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, DongGong Museum of Photograph in South Korea, He Xiangning Art Museum in Shenzhen, Hubei Museum of Fine Art in Wuhan, The Aine Art Museum in Tornio, Bury Art Museum in Manchester, Art Museum at University of Toronto, Varley Art Gallery of Markham, Art Gallery of Hamilton, and so on.

Dong has performed in many international performance art festivals, such as Rapid Pulse International Performance Art Festival in Chicago, 7a*11d International Festival of Performance Art in Toronto, ENCUENTRO Performance in Santiago, The Great American Performance Art in New York, Place des Arts in Montreal,  Infr’Action in Venice, Dublin Live Art Festival in Dublin, Experimental Action/ Performance Art in Houston, Internationales Festival für Performance in Mannheim, Inverse Performance Art Festival in California, Miami Performance International Festival, Nuit Blanches in Montreal, Visualeyez Performance Festival in Edmonton, M:ST Performance Art Festival in Calgary, and many public art galleries and spaces in Europe, North and South America. Dong’s video work has been screened in Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, UK, USA, and so on.

Among many other grants and awards, Dong was the recipient of the Franklin Furnace Award for performance art in New York in 2014, listed the “10 Artists Who Are Reinventing History” by Canadian Art in 2017, and was named “The Artist of the Year” at the DongGang International Photo Festival in South Korea in 2018.  Dong was a finalist for Contemporary Art Award at Le Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec ( Prix en art actuel du MNBAQ) 2020, awarded with Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts by the Conseil des arts de Montréal in 2021, and a long-listed artist for Sobey Art Award in 2024.

 

Vernissage
10 January 2025 17:00 -21:00