Cheng(Christine) Dong

I am a storyteller, visual communicator and printmaker born in China and now based in the UK. 

My early academic pursuits centred around language, literature and plays, which instilled in me a keen awareness of and emphasis on the poetic. Then I became seriously interested in visual expression to push the boundaries of linguistic code and to introduce new narratives. 

In 2022, I embarked upon this MA programme, where my practice is more based on rational and tangible knowledge research, expanding through visual poetry. 

Our understanding and interpretation of the world is inherently limited by our physical existence. That is why there is room for fictional stories in a world with overabundant knowledge.

I am in awe of the rigorous rational world where deductive methods and expressive systems prevail but also fascinated with self-evidence and intuition derived from what Blaise Pascal referred to as the "light of nature." 

Hence, I rely on fictional narratives to reflect the rigorous essence of the questions I raise. I believe any queries out of reach can be connected to through a fictional context where I see a conversation established in silence.

My topics surround understanding and transcending what we are accustomed to, while my artistic practice always seeks a delicate balance between poetry and rigour. I tend to reflect upon broader inquiries of perception, rationality, and humanism through printmaking, drawing, writing and materiality.  

In my recent project, I map the interplay between human language, perception, and life through the lens of mathematical concepts.