I Have Been There

Location: Various bus shelters, ION stations, and billboards throughout Waterloo Region and Cambridge

May 27, 2021 - June 27, 2021

Chun Hua Catherine Dong presents “I Have Been There,” an on-going public intervention performance that explores belonging, diaspora, and existence in public spaces. Each time Dong travels to a new place, she creates a beautiful duvet with Chinese traditional embroidered silk fabric. Covered by the duvet, she lies on the ground in front of historical sites, landmarks, tourist attractions, and other significant places or events around the world. She repeats this performance as a poetic expression of her diasporic identity and engagement with different cultures and spaces. Working within the gap between body as image and body as experienced reality, Dong uses her body as a primary material in her work, creating visual narratives that enable audiences to experience performance unexpectedly and directly in public spaces. She started this performance in 2015, and has performed in 15 countries, 33 cities, and over 250 different sites.

I Have Been There Educational Virtual Tour