Mengnan Gao

Mengnan Gao (Mona) is a London-based interdisciplinary artist and designer and a recent graduate of MA Narrative Environments at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Her practice focuses on the contemporary reimagining and cross-cultural communication of Chinese living traditions. Working through narrative space and cultural recoding, she approaches traditional craft as a living cultural language carrying histories, identities and systems of belief. She reactivates these traditions through spatial storytelling, performance, material experimentation and digital media. Before developing her independent artistic practice, Mengnan worked as a creative and strategic director, leading spatial narratives and experiential design projects for international brands including Rolls-Royce, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Amazon and Huawei. Her graduate project, Future Face-Changing Theatre, is a female-led bio-digital immersive theatre system that reimagines Sichuan Opera face-changing through stage design, live performance, biomaterial masks, costume and interaction. Across her work, she explores how cultural heritage can move beyond static preservation and become a living, evolving contemporary system.