BROKEN CHINA (Tao Leigh Goffe x Cecile Chong)
The duo began collaborating creatively in 2022. They explore fragmentation, resilience, and shattering myths of purity, while disrupting orientalist narratives and stereotypes.
Rumores / Rumblings, 2026 Soil mound and porcelain shards 11 x 4 x 1 ft
For Afong Moy & Saartje Baartman
Photograph
24 x 36 inches
BROKEN CHINA (Tao Leigh Goffe x Cecile Chong)
BIOS
Tao Leigh Goffe is a writer, theorist, and interdisciplinary artist who grew up between her native London and New York. Her art explores themes of her African and Chinese heritage at the crosscurrents of the Black Pacific and Chinese Atlantic. She is the founder and Executive Director of the Dark Laboratory and author of a book by the same title published in 2025 by Doubleday. She received her AB from Princeton University and PhD from Yale University. Her work has been supported by major grants from the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Cecile Chong was born in Ecuador to Chinese parents and grew up in Quito and Macau. She is a multimedia artist working in painting, sculpture, installation, public art, layering materials, identities, histories, and languages. Chong is one of the co-founders of the collective Asianish (currently 320 members,) she is the co-chair of the Smack Mellon board of directors and has been a co-director of Tiger Strikes Asteroid since 2020. Her public art installation EL DORADO – The New Forty Niners was installed in each of the five boroughs of New York City (2017-2022). She received an MFA from Parsons, an MA in education from Hunter College, and a BA in Studio Art from Queens College.
CV
Solo Exhibitions
2026 Old Stone House, Dear Mrs. Washington, Brooklyn, NY
Q Galería/Universidad de San Francisco de Quito - RUMOR de la TIERRA:Ecuador/Jamaica/China
Group Exhibitions
2025 KODAlab - Blue and White Tides, Governors Island
Residencies
2026 Ma’s House- Southampton, NY (April)
Awards
2026 Asian AMerican Arts Alliance - What Can We Do Artist Grant - The Boys Club of NY, Flushing, NY
Puffin Foundation Grant
NYSCA - New York State Council on the Arts FY2026 Grant
Curatorial Projects
2025 Tiger Strikes Asteroid - A Silence So Loud, co curated with Tao Leigh Goffe, Brooklyn, NY
Artists: Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Johann Diedrick, Jeremy Dennis, Sim Chi Yin
Panel Presentations
2026 - Q Galería - RUMOR de la TIERRA:Ecuador/Jamaica/China, Visitas Guiadas (Spanish)
2025 - The Metropolitan Museum - Research Out Loud – EL más allá de la Talavera Poblana, with Mónica Ramírez Bernal (English & Spanish)
2025 - Calabash Festival – Three Rivers, Jamaica
2025 - In Conversation with Tie Jojima - Curatorial Lecture
Public Programs
2026 - Afro-Asian-Latinx Masculinities Workshop - Boys Club of NY, Flushing Queens
2025 - Hip Hop Collage Making Workshop - Boys Club of NY, Gerry Clubhouse, NY, NY
Press
“A Silence So Loud” Demands Careful Listening, by Hindley Wang, A4 The Amp, April 4, 2025
Publications
Riso graph #1 – edition of 75