Jiyong Dong

In my work, I endeavor to construct both ephemeral and perpetual cultural spectacles, shaped by rapid political-ideological transformations and visual-cultural transplantation driven by wartime contingency and convenience. My practice traces and represents the long-ignored historical, political, and ideological complexities of Eastern and Northeastern Asia, and challenges the oversimplified narratives forged by a strategic cultural reconstruction resulting from the Cold War regional occupations and alliances of liberalism that continue to shape Western interpretations of East Asian geopolitics and regional resistances.  By reviewing the variations and correlations in political patterns before, during, and after wartime, I contest the singularity of modern identity based on political ideologies and nationalities defined by the division of sovereign states. Instead, my works imply a pre-treaty imaginary of national identity that once existed before the territorial partition of the designated modern international order — a pattern first established by global constituent violence in favor of colonialism and imperialism, at the cost of compromises made by many marginal and colonised polities. 

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