Dino Zhang’s works reside at the intersection of personal memory, history, and identity. His practice is grounded in autoethnographic research into the past. Drawing on family archives, personal diaries, and historical records, Zhang reassembles fragmented narratives into compelling visual meditations that challenge dominant historical discourses. His works capture the ephemeral nature of autobiographical memory and interrogate the ways of how personal experiences intertwine with broader socio-cultural transformations.
Zhang’s films often transcend the conventions of traditional storytelling. Drawing from the principles of expanded cinema, his works adopt a lyrical yet dialectical approach to examine themes of displacement, nostalgia, and the temporal slippages inherent in modernity.
In his latest project, The Oriental Pearls (2024), Zhang extends this exploration into a multi-channel film installation reflecting on Shanghai’s urban transformation following China’s economic reforms.
The project originates from a personal narrative: in the late 20th century, Dino’s grandfather and his colleagues conducted a feasibility study for the Shanghai Oriental Pearl TV Tower—an architectural landmark that became emblematic of a nation undergoing profound transition. As Shanghai rapidly modernized, the city evolved into a sprawling urban labyrinth, contrasting to the familiar landscape of his childhood.
In The Oriental Pearls, the newly built TV tower emerges as a prominent focal point, embodying the promise of progress and its underlying dissonance of rapid transformation. By resurfacing childhood memories, Zhang’s work captures this tension through a heterochronic lens, where past and present coexist in a dialogue that disrupts conventional narratives of urban development.
In addition to the use of both 4K video and Super 8mm film, which creates a textural contrast, the film redefines modernity not as a static historical account but instead as a fluid, evolving process. This approach invites us to recognize that the past is not merely a collection of events in an archive but rather a network of irreconcilable contradictions that continuously reshaping our identities and future possibilities.
As a single-channel format under the title “There, there”, the work was premiered at the Beijing International Short Film Festival 2024.
About the artist
Dino Zhang is an artist filmmaker and researcher based in London and Shanghai. He holds a BA degree in Fine Art from the Central Saint Martins and an MFA from the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford. His works have recently been presented at the Beijing International Short Film Festival 2024; HOME, Manchester; the Slow Film Festival 2024, London; MOUart Gallery, Beijing; Goethe-Institut, Shanghai; and The Bomb Factory Art Foundation, London. He is the recipient of the 2024 Elephant Trust Award.
You can find out more about Dino Zhang’s works on his Website & Instagram.
