EAGG Meets Christine Chang Hanway

Photograph by Kenneth Lam

Christine Chang Hanway is an artist and writer whose work explores stories of diaspora. She believes that telling our own stories and those of previous generations deepens our understanding of ourselves and our connections to each other and the world.

With a diverse professional background, Christine has served as UK Editor for Remodelista, where she created content for the US-based interiors website, covering design across the UK and Europe. Her architectural career included co-founding Metaphor, a museums and exhibition design firm that delivered projects for the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Imperial War Museum. She also worked with prestigious firms including Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Meier Partners, and IM Pei & Partners, contributing to landmark projects such as The Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. and The American Natural History Museum in NYC.

Currently, Christine serves as a board member at the Museum of the Home and is co-founder of Source Mountain; an impact initiative supporting mountain biodiversity through partnerships with indigenous mountain communities. She brings her passion for holistic health to her studies of ancient Indian and Chinese medicine's healing properties.

Christine holds a Master of Architecture from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design, where she also participated in a Cambridge University exchange fellowship at St. John's College. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College at Columbia University .

You have many interests that have influenced your career as an architect, design journalist and artist. Also, in the last six years, you have been on the board of trustees at the Museum of the Home. Is there a common thread that ties this work together?

I have always been interested in stories about people and how they live. As an architect I worked in residential, museum and exhibition design. As a design journalist, I wrote stories about people and their homes. Now as an artist, I am exploring my own stories of heritage and identity around how my parents and other immigrants in diaspora create homes in their new countries.

Investigating family stories from memories and photographs

Last summer, you traveled to Mongolia as the House of Tengri’s first Artist-in-Residence. Tell us about how you made the transition from architect to artist and why art is important to you.

It's been a gradual transition. I have always been very visual and was forever making, drawing and designing things as a child. Growing up in an immigrant Chinese family, though, I always understood that my academics were the priority and anything else was a hobby. Within my academic education, the end game was always directed to a profession.

I wanted to study History of Art at university because I was fascinated by the historical and cultural influences of human expression; I realise now that I was seeking a spiritual component to my education. My parents, however, could not see a clear professional path with a History of Art degree and encouraged me to study something more practical, which is how I landed on architecture.

What I loved about my architectural training was not exactly what my parents were hoping for! The training introduced me to a more holistic and iterative way of thinking that was very valuable for many careers in creative disciplines like film, theatre, fashion, food, and graphic design. Many of my fellow students, including my husband, went on to become successful architects, but the profession of architecture did not suit me.

And so I embarked on an outlier’s journey. First I explored within the profession and went from corporate architecture to residential and exhibition design. I became very interested in narrative spaces and decided to write about residential design and became the London editor for Remodelista. During this time, I continued to draw, sketch, and took many different art classes when I could. This journey has led me to where I am now, creating work that expresses my story and identity.

Sharing traditional Mongolian yak cheese and fermented mare's milk with a grandmother and grandson in their summer ger. Photograph by Nancy Johnston

How did the trip to Mongolia influence your artwork?

The trip to Mongolia was hugely impactful for me, both personally and professionally. While there I responded directly to the breathtaking mountainous terrain by painting on location watercolours. A rather curious meeting with a Shaman required some processing and on my return to London, I wrote an essay, ‘Lessons from the Shaman Door,’ about this experience that helped me make sense of some challenging ancestry.

Professionally, I am excited to announce that I have just launched a social impact initiative called Source Mountain with Nancy Vong Johnston, founder of House of Tengri and the organiser of this trip. We launched Source Mountain on International Women’s Day.

Watercolour sketch: Dragon Mountain in the Khanghai Mountains of Mongolia

Exciting — tell us more!

Source Mountain is the manifestation of our collective dream formed last summer in the Khangai Mountains of Mongolia. We founded Source Mountain to support and empower nomadic women and children in mountain communities, enabling them to continue to protect mountains and their biodiversity. Indigenous peoples, who make up less than 6% of the world’s population, safeguard 80% of our planet’s biodiversity through their valuable knowledge of how to live harmoniously with nature. And mountains are home to 15% of the world’s population and host 50% of biodiversity.

A large part of our mission will be educating people on the importance of mountains and their communities to the health of our planet. We will be holding workshops, organising trips, and developing products created in the mountains with indigenous materials. Please subscribe to our Source Wisdom newsletter to learn more about our events and how you can support our mission. Or better yet, become a member!

Children of mountain communities in Bhutan

During Covid, you trained as an Ayurvedic practitioner. Can you tell us why

and what you learned?

I have always been interested in the body’s ability to heal itself naturally and rarely take pharmaceuticals, including common painkillers like ibuprofen or acetaminophen. With the onslaught of Covid, the world fell ill with many unnecessary fatalities because of preexisting conditions like diabetes, hypertension, and obesity. I wanted to understand how the body’s holistic system can prevent disease and embarked on the fascinating study of Ayurveda.

Ayurveda, the science of life, is an ancient holistic practice of understanding our health and our bodies and how we are interconnected with nature. Many Ayurvedic principles are similar in traditional Chinese medicine, with which more people are familiar. I learned about the importance of balance in how we live and what we eat. The genius is that every remedy or recommendation is personalised and tailored to each unique individual. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. Taking care of ourselves this way requires personal knowledge and responsibility. Equally important is that we respect and understand our relationship to our natural surroundings.

East Asian Girl Gang is all about shared cultural and ethnic heritage. What does it mean to you and why did you join as a founding member?

Thank you, Eileen, for forming East Asian Girl Gang and inviting me to be a founding member. It's fantastic how much we have grown, and I am thrilled about working more closely with you on the EAGG Auntie Counsel. EAGG is a hub for friendships and community networking, and cultivating a space where we can celebrate our shared cultural and ethnic heritage is empowering. This work is meaningful to me because I grew up in a time where great emphasis was placed on assimilation and I never felt like I truly belonged or had my 'peeps'. Thanks to EAGG, I met Nancy and through our shared interests, we have co-founded Source Mountain!

Illustrating my mother's early childhood memories in Beijing

Can you give some simple tips on how to incorporate art and creativity into our daily lives?

Give yourself permission to be creative and enjoy the process rather than seek perfection.

Make time for it, even if it’s only 5 minutes a day; a simple doodle or sketch, a few words of thoughts, observations, poetry, or lines of music jotted down.

The key is consistency rather than time commitment - small daily creative acts are more effective at building an artistic mindset than occasional grand projects.

The Khangai Mountains of Mongolia. Photograph by Nancy Johnston