We recently connected with Mingyuan Dong and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Mingyuan , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In December 2023, I produced the eco-surrealist novel Not Sci-Fi, a unique creation that combines my three passions: writing, art, and design. Budding from the motif of environmental protection, Not Sci-Fi tells the story of a boy in a world deprived of resources who attempts to invent a perpetual motion machine, a device that defies the Laws of Thermodynamics by maintaining perpetual energy. Throughout his journey, he reflects on the concept of perpetual at physical, mental, and societal levels. This book embodies my surrealist practice by blurring the lines between the real and the unreal, striving to achieve the modern art goal of being “more real than the real.”

The inspiration for this project began when I was 11 and first learned about resource shortages and conflicts around the world. Fascinated by the idea that perpetual motion could solve our environmental problems, I started researching it. My younger self vigorously produced pages of “engineering design drawings” for a perpetual motion machine until I took AP Physics, which revealed how such a device is scientifically impossible. Disappointed, I shifted my focus from scientific solutions to the arts. I began creating artworks about perpetual motion to highlight the finite nature of our society and critique the human desire for eternity. At 19, I started writing and illustrating Not Sci-Fi. With continuous research in ecology and physics, I wrote the book, created the illustrations, and designed both the digital and physical formats over the course of four years.

This work is deeply meaningful to my growth as a creative because it was the first time I combined all my passions—not just art, writing, and design as mediums, but also my interests in physics, ecology, economics, and psychology—into a coherent, finished creation. I enjoyed the process of engaging with the narrator as if he had gained agency, asking him, “What do you want to do next?” while creating his plots. As he “hired” me to create the illustrations, he told me to really put myself in his shoes and imagine. Our collaboration taught me to treat the story—in both writing and art—with humility. Additionally, many readers said they had never seen a piece of work like this before. They brought me new perspectives, such as insights into the book’s metaphysical nature and futuristic tendencies. These interpretations allowed me to see my own work from different angles—as if it had become its own entity, an independent child exploring the world and bringing new insights back to me. How exciting!

Mingyuan , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My name is Mingyuan Dong, and I am a 24-year-old surrealist artist, author, and designer. I spent my childhood in China and immigrated to the United States with my family as a young teenager. In 2023, I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, with a triple major in Art Practice, Economics, and French Literature. Currently, I am pursuing a Master’s in Industrial Design (MID) at the Rhode Island School of Design.

As a creative, I carry two major roles: a designer in the materialistic realm and an artist-writer in the imaginary realm. While design is not entirely materialistic, and art and writing are not solely imaginative, I recognize the nuance in the source of motivation that distinguishes these two realms, often merging their boundaries.

With a background in environmental economics and behavioral economics (a field that combines economics and psychology), I create comprehensive designs that consider human behavior and ecological impact. My experience in founding two student organizations supporting people with disabilities led to my design passion: adaptive design. I aim to create everyday products that begin by improving the experience of people with disabilities and ultimately result in better designs for all populations.

Outside the world of design, I am an artist-writer. I have created drawings, sculptures, and interactive installations for various exhibitions. I have written magazine articles, directed the publication of books, and created book and article illustrations. My art and writing focus on my diverse areas of study, including the previously mentioned physics, psychology, economics, ecology, and plus: disabilities. My creative process involves extensive research and continuous reflection on the hidden meanings behind ideas, interactions, and policies. With surrealist expressions, my work explores the variation in perspectives in my interest areas and how society interweaves seemingly unrelated concepts.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

At UC Berkeley, driven by my passion for art and disabilities, I founded the non-profit organization GIFTS during my freshman year with two missions: running non-profit exhibitions for student artists and teaching arts and crafts to special-needs children.

As soon as our organization was registered in December 2019, COVID-19 hit. After discussing with my co-founder and Vice President, Nancy Xu, we decided to adapt our activities to the new circumstances. I led the design team to work on an eco-crafts book and a digital exhibition, while Nancy led the teaching team to conduct craft classes online.

Over the course of a year, I collaborated with 12 writers and graphic designers to produce the book How To Craft Sustainably. Due to the long project duration and lack of social interaction, meeting entirely on Zoom became challenging. After deliberate reflection, I came to the solution to speak with individuals for all decisions, break tasks into small, manageable chunks with attainable schedules, and host online bonding activities. Despite the difficulties, we succeeded in producing a comprehensive book of tutorials for crafts made from recycled materials, complete with pictures and colorful page designs. Nancy and I uploaded our book on Kickstarter, where it gained the “favorite project” title and successfully fundraised for our mission of non-profit exhibitions and teaching.

Following the book project, I directed an ecology-themed online exhibition, The Green Space, with my team. I organized an online opening with an artist speaker and, in collaboration with Nancy’s team, hosted an online eco-crafting activity. The exhibition was successful and became an annual event with a different theme each year.

Our ability to adapt and thrive during COVID-19 made our team stronger and allowed us to expand in the following years. Being the president of a startup organization during such an unusual time was stressful, but it strengthened my resilience for all my subsequent creative projects. More importantly, my team demonstrated how collective passion can drive significant impact, making collective resilience a powerful force.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

During my studies in art and French literature, I delved into surrealist literature such as Magnetic Fields (Les Champs magnétiques) and The Yellow Loves (Les Amours jaunes), as well as surrealist films like The Mechanical Ballet (Le Ballet mécanique). These works showed me the power of juxtaposing unrelated objects or ideas to create surprising meanings, resulting in outcomes that surpass surface-level reality through techniques like dream references and automatic writing.

Surrealism revolutionized my creative thinking by teaching me to recognize uncertainty, embrace ambiguity, and utilize randomness. Having consumed many surrealist works in the arts, I developed my process called “Randomization Exercise,” which I apply in my art, writing, and design (and many aspects of life).

Randomization Exercise in art and writing means selectively employing automatism. When I hit a dead end in writing, I write whatever comes to mind—unrelated or abstractly related ideas—then move the fragments around, piecing them together in different orders to derive new meanings. In art, I practice automatism through collage: I collect scraps from magazines and flyers, cut parts out, and reconstruct meaning through composition. Sometimes, I create a sculpture based on the form of a collage I made with minimal conscious effort. This exercise often results in messages that are stronger and more profound than those emerging from purely logical processes.

In design, this approach involves jotting down random ideas, then pairing them in unexpected ways to see which combinations lead to innovative outcomes that improve experiences. It’s like looking for convergences in a bunch of lines of concepts: two non-parallel lines will always intersect at some point; the challenge lies in how far apart the lines are and the probability of discovery. I explore at what point, in what space, and under what context seemingly unrelated ideas can intersect for something better. I love surprises, and I believe my randomization philosophy derived from surrealism stretches our brains for progress: 100 random combinations may yield one extraordinary idea that defies conventional imagination. This could be an invention that solves a long-standing problem or opens a new field of experience for the world.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://mingyuandong7.wixsite.com/ming
• Instagram: mingyd.arts
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ming-yuan-dong/
• Other: Book “Not Sci-Fi”: https://www.amazon.com/Not-Sci-Fi-Surrealist-Environmental-Novel-ebook/dp/B0CMN3CJF3/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1P5025ICSAT1A&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.9kV2rMS6iwa_oeRlWyC516VOYYvTzC-N1qWn8XnoXFK9UnC4JPRf3TnDDQ2f81c2s0f8bwsQq1KDfvTs5nRdqG63Uux1kzQrXCVBe5P0V1U5LFWeossPE47ZFpauzfmbgqSihXkmhSZlqFkbjP6DGyL_Y6XBtyNb_48yWLDKOErtFrRo5WQhqVmlo4Vowg368AXFlES-aUGUF9Su6Id4bAFTyqaVF9ShtkPN5sauwsI.EKpOnpyDaebzAs5RKh9nx04r0VjiYJHLStG1hNAimXU&dib_tag=se&keywords=not+sci+fi&qid=1720974615&sprefix=not+sci+f%2Caps%2C334&sr=8-1

Image Credits

All credits – Mingyuan Dong