Abstract

This thesis examines the public performance art practice of Beijing-based artist Kong Ning (b. 1958). Since 2013, Kong has been producing large-scale bridal gowns for an ongoing project she calls her “‘marriage series’ art performances.” Each dress in the series is made of a collection of symbolic materials: orange cones, 3M facemasks, eggs, plastic inflatables, leaves, even found detritus. She performs a peripatetic ritual in cities across the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and around the world. For the most part, these take place in front of significant monuments such as the Beijing National Stadium (2016) or more recently the Centre Pompidou in Paris (2017) and the Climate Change Conference in Katowice, Poland (2018). Once on site, Kong embodies her role as the bride of the earth, marrying herself to the sky in an expression of love for the planet and environmental advocacy. This thesis argues that beyond reading her performances as acts of protest against environmental degradation, Kong asserts a unique proposition around human to nonhuman relationality. As a woman artist over the age of 60, she represents a marginalised identity which she places at the forefront in her performance art series. In this way, Kong expresses a radical form of relationality that intersects marriage and sexuality in a feminist ecological critique. To demonstrate my argument, I conduct an analysis of Kong’s Marry the Blue Sky (2014-2015) and 1,000 Egg World Earth Day Dress (2016) among other performances in the series, using theories of gender, sexuality, and ecofeminism. The many tensions around Kong’s performance practice, including the sociopolitical context of the PRC and its strict regulation of activist art, make for a compelling case study that is deeply relevant to contemporary discourses in the field of art history.