Shengnan Dong

Shengnan Dong is a PhD candidate in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS University of London. Her research focuses on Buddhist art, architecture, and visual culture in Tibet from the 10th to 15th centuries. Her current project examines a fifteenth-century chorten (stupa) at Chung Riwoche in Central Tibet, under the supervision of Dr Christian Luczanits. This work is based primarily on in situ documentation and serves as the first systematic investigation of the monument’s architecture, iconographic programme, and its multivalent meanings within the broader historical and cultural context of late medieval Tibet. 

In 2023, she presented her paper “Monumental Memorials: Multi-chambered Stupas in Central Tibet During the 13th–15th Centuries” at the United Kingdom Association for Buddhist Studies (UKABS) conference at the University of St Andrews. In 2024, she presented her research on the Nyingma mandalas in the Chung Riwoche chorten at the 7th International Seminar of Young Tibetologists (ISYT) at Wolfson College, Oxford. Before beginning her doctoral studies, Shengnan completed her first MA in Tibetan History at Columbia University and her second MA in Buddhist Art: History and Conservation at the Courtauld Institute of Art, where she developed an interest in Himalayan visual culture. 

She holds an LL.B. in International Politics from Fudan University. Prior to her graduate studies, she worked at several art institutions, including the Museum Department of the Asia Society in New York and Christie’s Beijing, where she worked as a research intern. In addition, she has worked as an in-house designer and film editor at a production company in Beijing. Her article on the Gyantse Kumbum was published in Himalayan Art in 108 Objects (2023). In addition, she co-translated Jehane Ragai’s The Scientist and the Forger: Probing a Turbulent Art World into Chinese, and has translated several academic articles between Tibetan, English, and Chinese. 

Her broader academic interests include Buddhist art of Inner Asia and China, the formation of Nyingma pantheon(s), local deities, religious mural paintings, and cross-regional exchanges. She is particularly committed to combining fieldwork with art historical analysis to shed light on under-documented monuments and their roles in shaping religious and artistic traditions.

Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist art

Buddhist monuments

Mandalas 

Nyingma pantheon(s)

Local deities

Religious mural paintings 

Sacred spaces

Cross-regional exchanges