Frank (Haotian) Cong
Frank Haotian Cong is a media artist and educator based in Shanghai and Cambridge, MA. His practice explores how humans, technologies, and nonhuman species can connect meaningfully through relations of control, care, and maintenance. Working across installation, performance, living materials, and sensory processes, he creates situations in which agency is distributed among human and more-than-human actors, including Siamese fighting fish, silkworm moths, microbes, dough, machines, and the human body. Much of his recent work focuses on fermentation, sprouting, and bodily contact as ways to think through ecological interdependence.
He has exhibited, curated, and presented at a range of art, design, and technology institutions and events, including Première Vision in Paris (2016), the Consciousness Reframed Conference (2017), Out of Control at Songjiang Art Museum (2018), Ars Electronica in Linz (2019), the Shanghai Science Festival (2020), Lab2 at Liu Haisu Art Museum (2022), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (2023–2025). He is the founder of Knot Cafe, an independent art studio.
Frank has also held teaching and research positions at institutions including New York University Shanghai, the Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, the China Academy of Art, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He holds a B.A. in Art and Technology from Roy Ascott Technoetic Arts Studio, Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts, and an M.Sc. in Art, Culture, and Technology from MIT.
For inquiries regarding exhibitions, commissions, or consulting, feel free to get in touch via email:
