On April 26th and 27th, from 1 to 6 pm, artists in DUMBO will open their doors to the public as part of DUMBO Open Studios, offering a rare look inside the art studios along the Brooklyn waterfront. Since the 1970s, DUMBO has been shaped by its vibrant art community. This interview series highlights a handful of participating artists in 2025. Each response offers a glimpse of what’s waiting behind the studio door. Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong has been in DUMBO since 2015. Her studio is at 20 Jay Street #M10B (mezzanine level).
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What will we see in your studio?
Much of my practice is creating site-specific, human scale public artworks, so you’ll see a lot of documentation of these projects in my space! I’ve installed works in parks, plazas and public spaces in New York, Boston, Washington DC and other cities. The photographs and videos show the artworks in situ and being used by local students and community members. BLOOM and TRIBUTE are two newer permanent public sculptures installed last year in two DC public schools.
There are also smaller, physical sculptures, as well as models and material studies in my studio: small monuments, suspended artworks created from Chinese good luck tassels and candies, casts.
Lastly, select architectural renders and photographs will be shown from my REFLECTIVE URBANISMS: Mapping New York Chinatown project, which I began in 2022. This interactive, multimedia web project maps Manhattan Chinatown’s architectural changes. Transformations that have occurred in its buildings, since Chinatown was established in the 1860s, are visualized through reconstructed digital models of the buildings and investigated alongside community stories about these spaces. As a restorative history project, it aims to create an architectural archive that honors and connects these stories to the buildings. REFLECTIVE URBANISMS: Mapping New York Chinatown is part of a continuing series researching Chinatown architecture across North America.
About the artist: Cheryl Wing-Zi Wong is an artist and trained architect working at the intersection of art, architecture and the public realm. Cheryl’s work investigates the transformation of space over time and how community stories are connected to architecture.Through site-specific, interactive architectural interventions that activate underused public spaces, she explores how we negotiate and share space together. Born and raised in Los Angeles, Cheryl received her B.A. in Art and Italian at the U.C. Berkeley, studied sculpture at Brera Academy in Milan, Italy, and earned her Master of Architecture degree from Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.Cheryl has completed temporary and permanent outdoor public artworks commissioned by the Washington DC Government / DC Public Schools, NYC Parks, Rose Kennedy Greenway Conservancy, City of Inglewood, City of Calgary, NY State Thruway Authority, Van Alen Institute, amongst others. @cherylwzw