1.THE BURIED ONE
The fact of male dominance in Chinese traditional culture makes women in the old era face long-term oppression and shackles. When the monarchy and polygamy followed, while men's status was respected, women were limited by the traditional environment and are unable to think and dominate their body and behavior freely. The appearance, words and deeds, family background were regarded as women’s tickets to gain the prominent marriage. They were asked to play an excellent reproductive tool to establish their status as wives and concubines. They were also required to obey men's orders unconditionally and abide by the "Three Obediences and Four Virtues." From the late Northern Song Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, foot-binding was used on women to strengthen males’ status ,increase bondage and stabilize the patriarchal feudal system. The harsh living environment and the constant pressure from the patriarchal society have become the normal lives of women before. They could not produce an independent sense of resistance. What they could do is to reflect absolute obedience in endless humble situations.
1.Three Obediences : obey father, husband and sons after death of the husband. Four Virtues: chastity, modesty in speech, neatness of appearance, and good needlework and cooking. <https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Obediences_and_Four_Virtues>.
2.Smith, T.M. 2018, Footbinding, Britannnica, accessed 31 July 2021, <https://www.britannica.com/science/footbinding>.
Tianmiao Lin is one of the well-known installation artists in China. Tianmiao Lin often gets creative inspiration from her personal life experience.
Footbinding, a strange custom that has existed in China for more than 1000 years, has come to an end; At present, although the form of foot binding is no longer, the concept of women's "foot binding" - cosmetic surgery, breast enhancement, weight loss and so on still continues.
Aimin Tao is a Chinese female artist who is good at combining installations with oil paintings and videos, using ready-made products and folk art techniques. Her works often explore the personal history and daily life of rural Chinese women.
2.THE OBJECTIFIED ONE
The female body is often not as an expression of the female own subjectivity, but is drawn away from the female own will, as an object, and becoming the embodiment of other people or mainstream social concepts and values (usually a male and a male-based society). The Objectified ONE aims at the problem of being stared at and consumed in life that women face in the context of contemporary China. In contemporary society, women are under a lot of pressure from gender and traditional stereotypes: sexism, body humiliation, fertility tools......If we look at it from the perspective of gender comparison, we will find that men are rarely objectified as objects in this way. This is a society dominated by men. Men are the gazers and actors, while women are the objects of gaze and the embodiment of male values. Whether as a symbol of feminine beauty, national integrity or cultural humiliation, women are always regarded as "things" at the level of mainstream discourse. After being separated from the subjectivity of women themselves, they become the bearer of certain cultural, political and even commodity views. Looking back at the present from this perspective, isn't the definition of beauty, ugliness and fertility of women in the media and the masses echoing the lingering sound of three inches of golden lotus?
3.Strelan, P. and Hargreaves, D., 2005. Women Who Objectify Other Women: The Vicious Circle of Objectification?. Sex Roles, 52(9-10), pp.707-712.
4.Three inches of golden lotus, also known as bound feet. Since the Tang Dynasty, women have to wrap their feet tightly with cloth from early childhood to deform the bones of the feet and have small toes. This custom was not gradually abolished until the beginning of the 20th century.
YU Shuk Pui Bobby feels annoyed about the continuous commercialization of women in media, culture, and daily life. She tries to give women subjectivity.
Mother is the emotional carrier in Wenjing artworks. The micro-world presented in her works is a time-recording of this carrier, and it is the memory of women being turned into fertility machines and women body pain and scars.
Pray For Blessing is not only the most merciful prayer of a mother, but also the first cry of an embryonic life. Yue Mingyue used red yarn and red thread to create a distinctive "giant uterus".
3.THE INDEPENDENT ONE
After being influenced by Western feminist trends, more female artists have a more diverse and broader vision. They have more diverse creative attempts, and they also pay more attention to the participation on the spot and the transmission of emotional opinions. They not only reflect on traditions, but also boldly absorb and draw on many advanced foreign concepts. They not only directly expose the issue of gender discrimination, but also have an in-depth analysis of social development. In the presentation of art works, in addition to scanning the daily life of women, it also fully excavates and sorts out the dilemma of human desire.
They continue to pay attention to the intense discussion of the complex relationships between politics, history, culture, female identity, and gender psychology, and through their art works, they have sharply questioned and critically analyzed the urban humanistic fission and the alienation of the living environment. Xiang Jing and Chen Xiaoxuan's works chose different themes. One is to create young women full of hope and happiness, and the other is to try to get rid of the shackles of the old age. But the purpose of the works is to turn their attention to the broader social life and the changes in the living environment of people to deal with and perplexity. They rely on women's unique consciousness, thinking, standpoint, and perspective to realize the bloom of their artistic value. And women's unique way of observing the world has been selected and used in a targeted manner, in order to more clearly show women's individual will, artistic pursuit and aesthetic yearning.
Therefore, "independent individuals" have become more of the perspective and method of modern female artists in the process of expression, making the audience full of expectations and prospects for the future of female art.
Eggs have long been a symbol of female fertility, and egg also represents female eggs. As the eggs are broken, female participants can feel the pleasure of breaking the restriction of their female identity.
