Chun Hua Catherine Dong
in Chandler
EXHIBITION
I Have Been There – Charlevoix
Chun Hua Catherine Dong, Montreal, Québec | chunhuacatherinedong.com
I Have Been There is an ongoing performance exploring belonging, diaspora and existence in public spaces. At each visit to a new place, Dong makes a new duvet with Chinese traditional embroidered silk fabric. Covered by the duvet, Dong lies on the ground of historical sites, landmarks, tourist attractions and other significant places or events. Dong’s performance is based on a funeral tradition in their hometown in which the daughters of a deceased person each make a duvet to place over their loved one’s body. Dong adapts the ritual and repeatedly performs it around the world as a poetic expression of their diasporic identity and engagement with different cultures and spaces. Occasionally attracting the attention of police and security personnel, Dong sees their performance as a political act that tests the democracy of public spaces.
The artist created this exhibition as part of a photographic mission intended to document the Charlevoix landscape in 2021-2022.
EXHIBITION AT RENCONTRES
I Have Been There – Charlevoix
Chun Hua Catherine Dong (she/they) is a Chinese-born Tiohtià:ke/Montreal-based multimedia artist. Dong received an MFA from Concordia University and a BFA from the Emily Carr University of Art + Design in Vancouver, British Columbia. Dong’s work has been exhibited in many national and international venues, such as the Quebec City Biennial, Montreal’s MOMENTA Biennale de l’image, MAC VAL in France, the International Digital Art Biennial in Montreal, the Museo de la Cancillería in Mexico City and Montreal’s PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, among others. Dong was the recipient of the Franklin Furnace Award for performance art in New York in 2014, a finalist for the Contemporary Art Award from the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec in 2020, and received a Cultural Diversity in Visual Arts Award from the Conseil des arts de Montréal in 2021.