Qinghong Wei, Ph.D.

 

Dr. Wei is the artist, educator and farmer based in western North Carolina. She holds a doctoral degree studying art’s impact on people and community. She has extensive training and experiences in multiple art disciplines. Watercolor painting is her primary medium to connect deeply within and express her love for this world. Especially, she is called to portray the luminous spirit within people and the natural world.

 

Before becoming a professional artist, she served in executive roles in several international nonprofit organizations. She was the Executive Director of Community Performance International, an art organization that helps communities around the world to tell and perform their true stories. She also served as President and CEO of Overseas China Education Foundation, a highly respected grassroots nonprofit with thousands of volunteers in the world.

 

Dr. Wei is a pioneering scholar and practitioner in community development through arts. Her original research on art and its empowerment impact on communities is a significant contribution to the field. Dr. Wei also has diverse development planning experience working with governments, consulting firms and communities internationally. From 2006 to 2008, Dr. Wei was the Senior Planner for the City of Sarasota and chaired the City's Development Review Committee in 2008, leading the review of multiple billion-dollar development proposals. 

 

Dr. Wei has presented and hosted workshops at international leadership summit, regional conferences, universities including MIT, and diverse organizations in Seattle, Los Angeles, Boston, Beijing, Shanghai and many more. Dr. Wei has co-founded multiple award-winning social innovation programs including pARTicipate and the Internet School, the first online education and empowerment program of Rural China. She is the co-producer, co-director, and playwright of Songs of Tang Hulu premiered in Beijing, China in 2016 and 2017, and the co-director of Harmony in the Hills, a youth-driven intergenerational program funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, among many prominent projects. Dr. Wei is the co-author of Open Circle: Story Arts and the Reinvention of Community.

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Since 2021, Dr. Wei moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains, and started a regenerative farm together with her husband. Now she lives and works on Starry Farm together with many farm animals, numerous plants and wildlife, learning the art of living from Mother Nature.