Kong Qianyang (b. 1998, Ningbo) is a London-based Chinese artist whose works span across site-specific sculpture, installation, photography, and poem. She received a Master’s degree in Textiles at the Royal College of Art in 2023. Her works speak the narratives that emphasise the architectural heritage and the living memory.
Her sculptures and installation have been exhibited at the Broadwick Studios, Angel Yard and Blackdot Gallery in London. She was recently nominated and given a special award by Cantieri del Contemporaneo for Crea Open 2025 (Venice). Kong's work is also published by EST8 MAGAZINE (Barcelona) and China Daily (Beijing).
Artist Statement:
My practice ties back to my childhood memory. The courtyard that I had been living ten years in the outskirt of city Ningbo before the demolition spread. The nostalgia and unresolved displacement to the collapse of home drives my works often resonate with the desolate scene of ruin left behind the demolitions.
The suspended ruin embodies a psychological scar left behind demolition, particularly affecting those from the 1960s and earlier generations. This scar cannot be seamlessly healed—but it must be acknowledged. Through my work, I strive to create a liminal space that belongs neither to the past nor the future, reflecting a psychological “in-between” state—an unsettling feelings in those dispalced communities. I create this liminal space by focusing on a corner of the demolished buildings, including bracket underneath roof, interior column-and-beam structure rather than presenting the buildings in their entirety. A corner of the buildings could be interpreted in multiple ways either a piece of fragment left behind demolition or an element of a building site, indicating ambiguous timeline. To build a liminal space, my installations convey speculative messages and disrupt linear narrative structure.
My work retrospect the Chinese architectural traditions and re-contextualise the vernacular studies in a broader art and culture sector by rebuilding the collective memory of architecture in the place I am. The place I work and live pieces back my reflection and further interpretation to the physical form of home.
By rebuilding collective memory of architecture, I involve materials and construction techniques, such as mortise and tenon joinery, that have been historically used in Ningbonese architectural traditions and also merge the material that could be accessed in the UK. By rebuilding collective memory of architecture, I execute the works in London and collectively work with a London-based atelier-James Brown Atelier. His photo album chromatically documented last century landscape before the rapid change of urban and erasure of vernacular culture across Yangtze River. By rebuilding collective memory of, my work resonates with universal loss-the collapse of home, the displacement and the dissolve of physical form.
Perceiving my work as the broken masonry, stuccoed since two centuries ago and holding the lingering warmth of my ancestors’ palms; as the interstice between the beam and column, bearing silent witness to the decline in the mortise and tenon wooden joinery; as a particle of dust, drifting here and there, destined to be swept away by the inevitable tide.
Education
2022-2023
MA, Textiles, Royal College of Art, London
2021-2022
Graduate Diploma, Art and Design, Royal College of Art, London
2017-2020
BA (hons) Fashion and Textile Design: Knitwear for Fashion, Winchester School of Art, Winchester, UK
Selected Exhibitions
2025
28 June-19 October, Shelter, The New Art Gallery Walsall, London
15th May-18th May, Echoes of Presence, Blackdot Gallery https://www.blackdotgallery.com/gallery/kong-qianyang, London.
Last Words of The Dust II, Curated by The Daughters United, Broadwick Studio, London.
Spring Time Event, Fore Street For All CIC, Angel Yard Upper Edmonton, London
Upcoming Exhibition, Blue, Curated by Ellen Kydd, London
2023
A Cocoon Room, Textile Festival, Royal College of Art Kensington Campus, London
Calculate The Memory, DUCFS exhibition, Durham, UK
2022
Reveal the Fantasy, RCA Textile Department, London
2020 Degree Show, Winchester School of Art, Winchester, United Kingdom
2019 Spinexpo Paris, Cité de la Mode et du Design, France
2018 Retro Game, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
2022-2023
MA, Textiles, Royal College of Art, London
2021-2022
Graduate Diploma, Art and Design, Royal College of Art, London
2017-2020
BA (hons) Fashion and Textile Design: Knitwear for Fashion, Winchester School of Art, Winchester, UK
Selected Exhibitions
2025
28 June-19 October, Shelter, The New Art Gallery Walsall, London
15th May-18th May, Echoes of Presence, Blackdot Gallery https://www.blackdotgallery.com/gallery/kong-qianyang, London.
Last Words of The Dust II, Curated by The Daughters United, Broadwick Studio, London.
Spring Time Event, Fore Street For All CIC, Angel Yard Upper Edmonton, London
Upcoming Exhibition, Blue, Curated by Ellen Kydd, London
2023
A Cocoon Room, Textile Festival, Royal College of Art Kensington Campus, London
Calculate The Memory, DUCFS exhibition, Durham, UK
2022
Reveal the Fantasy, RCA Textile Department, London
2020 Degree Show, Winchester School of Art, Winchester, United Kingdom
2019 Spinexpo Paris, Cité de la Mode et du Design, France
2018 Retro Game, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
Press
2025
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202504/30/WS6811ca96a310a04af22bd151.html by ChinaDaily
Fore Street For All e-newsletter
https://est8magazine.com/to-witness,-to-resist-kong-qianyang by EST8 Magazine, Barcelona, Spain
The Holy Art Magazine, Issue 07, London
2024
ReadingCub, Beijing Zhijapan Culture Comunciation Co., Ltd
https://ellenkydd.substack.com/p/studio-update by Ellen Kydd, Elle's Monologue, Online Publication
2022
Red Is on Red, Published by Royal College of Art, Online Publication
Awards
2025 Shortlist by Cockpit Art for Make It Award, London
2025 Shortlist and Special Award by CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo in Crea Open 2025, Venice
2020 Nominated Talent, Fashion Crossover London, United Kingdom
2016 Winner of Creative Design, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
Work Experience
9/2023-9/2024 Artist Assistant, Sandra Poulson Studio, London
2025
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202504/30/WS6811ca96a310a04af22bd151.html by ChinaDaily
Fore Street For All e-newsletter
https://est8magazine.com/to-witness,-to-resist-kong-qianyang by EST8 Magazine, Barcelona, Spain
The Holy Art Magazine, Issue 07, London
2024
ReadingCub, Beijing Zhijapan Culture Comunciation Co., Ltd
https://ellenkydd.substack.com/p/studio-update by Ellen Kydd, Elle's Monologue, Online Publication
2022
Red Is on Red, Published by Royal College of Art, Online Publication
Awards
2025 Shortlist by Cockpit Art for Make It Award, London
2025 Shortlist and Special Award by CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo in Crea Open 2025, Venice
2020 Nominated Talent, Fashion Crossover London, United Kingdom
2016 Winner of Creative Design, Dalian Polytechnic University, Dalian, China
Work Experience
9/2023-9/2024 Artist Assistant, Sandra Poulson Studio, London