KATIE MONGOVEN

BIO

Katie Mongoven (上秋莲 ) is a Chinese-American fiber artist based in metro Detroit, MI. She received her BFA from the University of Michigan and is currently pursuing her MFA at Cranbrook Academy of Art. Mongoven has exhibited her embroidery pieces across the United States, including ROY G BIV Gallery in Columbus, OH, Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT, and Playground Detroit. She has also appeared on Kent State University’s public radio WKSU podcast, Shuffle. Mongoven has attended residencies at California Institute of the Arts, University of Michigan, and Vermont Studio Center. Her work is held in public collections at Summa Health in Akron, OH and MetroHealth in Cleveland, OH, and in various private collections throughout the United States.

STATEMENT

My work questions the value of a home at the cost of a homeland. China’s One Child Policy forced diasporic effects, causing an absence of personal knowledge of the Jiangxi province, my birthplace, that I can only now speculate about and shallowly research. Through the blended use of various textile mediums and materials, I operate in the space between loss and gain, here and there, fate and free will, and past and present. The use of cotton, silk, bamboo, tech, and kumquat imagery in my work draws comparisons between the exports that make up most of the Jiangxi’s economy and me, one of approximately 120,000 Chinese children exported between 1980 and 2015. Textiles allow for process-heavy work where the methodology can contribute to my work’s ongoing themes and questions. The processes of punch needle embroidery, hand embroidery, hand-dyeing, machine sewing, and weaving support the investigation of the third space, the physicality of mess, and the homage to my identity as a Chinese immigrant with an Irish-Catholic upbringing. I do not expect to find or understand the answers to the questions I pose. The answers, like my identity, exist in perpetual fluidity and cannot be understood, only felt. Instead, I explore this space, seeking and sensing what it feels to be Chinese American, not first generation and not a third culture kid, but someone swept into the in-between.