The 41st recipient of the Creatives Grant is Dino Zhang. We were big fans of his 2023 piece Upon that River, a gently paced film that pieces together family photographs with contemporary, hazy, almost twinkling video that rocks on the choppy surface of the water, under a story about one family’s migration through China in line with social and economic changes. We love art that grapples with the realities of class, and Zhang’s film felt so rich in its visual and editorial treatment of the subject matter. We look forward to following his career!
BIO: Dino Zhang is an artist based in London and Shanghai. Shifting across mediums, his works examine the complexity of Chinese history, culture and contemporary society. By reimagining alternative narrations of historical events, Dino obsesses with building up a personal connection with historical characters. In a research-led practice, he looks for a myriad of insights into the linear but bifurcated entanglement between the memory of the past and the subject gazing into history. Mostly working with sculpture and filmmaking, Dino introduces his methodology of reactivating historical events by deconstructing the meaning of identity in modern-day China.