HOW TO USE ARTS TO SPREAD MODERN FEMINISM

1.He Weina

Most of the characters in He Weina’s works are based on herself. She not only draws and writes about herself, but also records the current status of women in the form of ink and wash. He Weina uses a surreal way to express the situation of women in bathrooms, bedrooms, boudoirs, and dreams.She draws women’s confusion about how to play multiple social roles in a complex and changeable social environment from a female perspective, as well as their escape from social reality, or fear, timidity, and female characteristics.

All kinds of blood-red bubbles appearing out of thin air, mixed with female heads smaller than the bubbles, this is a kind of uneasy, ominous and even fearful feeling about the living environment.

2.Hu Xiaoyuan

She uses her own hair as the thread, outlining the lines. Each piece is a different size, and one piece in each pair is embroidered with parts of her body (fingers, lips, hair, breasts, etc.), and the other embroidered graphics that correspond to it may be interesting to you. They are like flowers, birds, fish, etc., but for Chinese people, they have other meanings: for example, a pair of mandarin ducks, a pair of stalk lotuses, and two fish are all about Tradition, love, marriage, commitment and affection. Chinese people can understand the special meaning in these graphics.The images and interests of her works follow the traces of her personal thoughts, expressing the tension between the inner world and the outer world with the sensitive tentacles of women.

3.Song Kun

Song Kun’s works have always contained an important concept: “stream-of-consciousness narration” and “subliminal synaesthesia”, which are important features of her creation and are also the inheritance of Chinese oriental aesthetics. She never tried to provide any fixed symbols or concepts, but put forward an independent sample of China at this stage for the proposition “How to feel the experience, cognition and rich emotions endowed by life”. “Her firmness and self-confidence enable her paintings to borrow languages ​​from music, sound, video and other aspects, so that paintings gain a special narrative energy.”

It regards art as an endoscope of self-life experience, depicting different emotional experiences and emotional changes in daily life with the unique slenderness and sensitivity of women, such as “fear”, “desire”, “care”, etc. “, “Growth”, “Happiness” and “Confusion”, etc., in the seemingly simple pictures, there is also a unique immaturity and aura, sometimes revealing sharpness. Some people once commented that Song Kun’s art is A “juicy individualism”.

http://songkun.org/zh/

4.Chen Qingqing

Her installation art began to enter the theme of death boundary and soul reincarnation from the feminist language critical consciousness. Through the background of this supernatural theme, she began to philosophically create a personal language form.

From this point of view, Chen Qingqing completed the transcendence of a woman’s lifetime consciousness, and thus entered into the re-weaving of experience from the perspective of gnosis where life and death are like dramas. This is the last kind of transcendence that people can do, that is, symbolic transcendence.

5.Chen Qiulin

Chen Qiulin combines the reality of the environment with the non-reality of love myths in a way of combining behavior and images. While paying attention to serious environmental issues, there is no shortage of ridicule and confusion, expressing women’s psychological experience in this regard

6.Xu Xiaoyan

Xu Xiaoyan has been an obedient and good girl since she was a child, following the example of “Mao Xuan”. In college, under the influence of various western thoughts, she experienced the wild period of youthful restlessness. She even shaved her head, drank a big bowl of wine, and painted paintings with extremely exaggerated, deformed and strong colors. From performance to art, a wild and unruly rebellious spirit, when she married Mengguang and had children, from the experience of a girl into a woman, her simple nature returned to her reality and spiritual world. What’s more, she has a peaceful and indifferent temperament as a woman, and she has returned to reality greatly, giving a woman’s love and paying attention to the trivial things around her. The good thing is that she is not like many female painters whose artistic talents are buried in endless trivial matters. In the midst of trivial matters, nothing is achieved, and it becomes a “ruin”. She finds the meaning of painting and the value of life from trivial and inconspicuous things.

Her works permeate the simple and profound survival secrets of man and the earth as a whole, as well as a woman’s innate experience and dedication, as well as her perception of life and life. Elevate the suffering of the earth to a spiritual level. It also presents the carrying, nurturing, and living life forms of the earth.

7.Cao Fei

Cao Fei’s works directly discuss issues related to consumption and power relations, and add an ambiguous meaning of gender perspective, which has a strong realistic pertinence.

Her artistic practice is clearly influenced by the dramatic transformations that have taken place in China over the past 30 years. Resonates at an international level on themes involving a globalized society and workforce.

Her artistic language is between reality and fantasy. It transforms elements of pop and gaming culture such as film, animation, cosplay, music (Cantonese pop and hip hop) and social media into humorous and captivating productions that reflect our changing contemporary environment.

http://www.caofei.com/works.aspx?wtid=3

Generally speaking, although Chinese contemporary female art is influenced by Western feminist thoughts, Chinese female art has a different environment and cultural background. The works of Chinese female artists are obviously different from those of Western female artists in some aspects. s difference. Chinese women’s art works are more subtle and depressive. The pain of suffering, being destroyed and being torn apart in the works is more obvious, and the sadness and helplessness are more than the anger. From the side, it also reflects the plight of Chinese women and feminism still has a hard way to go.

Ref：

1.http://www.99ys.com/home/2010/07/19/14/123496.html

2.https://www.artda.cn/view.php?tid=8730&cid=63

3.http://www.art-ba-ba.com/main/main.art?threadId=193974&forumId=8

4.https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/68564620

1.Jingjing Liu

林菁菁 is a conceptual visual artist whose work deals primarily with social-political themes. She is known for the wide range of approaches in her art, explores the depths of social and personal identity in the context of modern society, expresses the grim connection between the sexual symbolism of traditional flowers and women’s social roles.

Those roses that are being sewn and sewn mean that they are restricted and locked up, just like mummies, becoming sacrifices for sacrifices，The spirit of the work has a kind of anger that originates from women themselves and reveals the true desire that has been concealed.

2. Manwen Liu

A female artist with contemporary cultural spirit。

The unique portrait of “big white face” gives people a strong visual impact. Her subversive self-expression has undoubtedly become an iconic symbol of feminist art. For a long time, female images have often been “tamed” into an idealized state, but Manwen Liu uses a very symbolic “mask” portrait to approach the audience with a posture different from traditional conventions, presenting a This kind of forced and helpless cry of “I want to talk”, is no longer just a posture of passive listening. She covered her face with a “mask” or “mask” to make herself invisible, but obtained a female face with female “publicity”.

“Report on Survival Experience” is still a relatively straightforward illustration. If it expresses women’s contradictions among self, family, and society.

the “Ordinary Life” series further concretizes the environment into the family space, expressing the loss of “self” in the roles of wives and mothers, and the resulting problems. The dissociation and helplessness between emotions such as fate and resistance, restraint and freedom coexist. She seems to randomly capture the surrounding environment and the relationship between “self” and present it in the picture in a close-up manner, so as to express the indescribable emotions and life states in the spiritual world of modern women

3. Yijun Liao

Yijun Liao is a multi-media artist whose work covers photography, installation and performance art. Known for her choreographed photography, she is the subject of a selfie with her boyfriend Moro as an inspiration. Her work challenges the stereotypes of traditional male-female relationships and humorously explores the possibilities of intimacy.

“My work is inspired by my feelings as a girl growing up in China and as a woman in today’s world.”she said.

4. Danwen Xing

She is one of the first Chinese artists to use photography as a medium for artistic creation. Xing Danwen works in the form of photography, video and multimedia installations. Her works focus on the highly urbanized China today, reflecting on multiple issues such as local and global, desire and female identity, as well as individual and collective.

“Line” is a double-video work, which is also the problem I have always wanted to explore between people. This problem is based on the most primitive human emotional relationship between me and my mother. , one screen of the work is my mother knitting a skirt for me with full of love and focus, and the other screen is my daughter wearing a skirt and tearing it up in action. This seemingly contradictory approach actually illustrates the relationship between them. Differences in worldviews, values ​​and methodologies. When the two videos are displayed at the same time, they are in a state of mutual recognition and support, which creates a more complex and multi-layered psychological relationship.

5.Xiuzhen yin

In the history of modern China, the struggle between women’s sensibility and the turmoil of social revolution was very fierce. She collected those objects and images and recycled them into her works. “

From old clothes, cement to porcelain, her art always carries a woman’s memory.

6.Yajuan Han

Her perspective shifts between parallel and overlooking, changing the mutual projection between her and the people in the painting, she is no longer one of them, she escapes the unconscious situation in the maze, she can dominate some things , from now on, she is both the describer and the master.

7.Tianmiao Lin

Thread and female body are two mediums that Lin Tianmiao has always used. The former comes from her childhood experiences. At that time, my mother was tearing down old sweaters, and Lin Tianmiao was winding up yarn balls. The latter comes from Lin Tianmiao’s own experiences and perceptions. A middle-aged woman loses her charm, but adds a lot of life responsibilities.Her works show a kind of nervous repetition and diffuse expansion, and almost all kinds of utensils related to domestic life are wrapped with cotton thread. The cotton thread is like a vine or organic creature that can grow on its own, crazily entangled with everything, softly, densely and neatly entwined, suppressing all vitality in this mechanical gray-white permeation… The work is stubborn The repetition reveals dissatisfaction and resentment towards the prescribed female identity; Shi Hui uses cotton thread and paper to make net-like objects, which also shows a connection between the manual labor process of repeating units and women’s daily life. What attracts attention among them is that when female artists use these materials, they elicit the concepts presented in the use. Therefore, this comprehensive form of artistic expression is not only due to the comprehensive factors of the materials of the works, but also due to the female perspective and female way in the selection and expression process, making it an unprecedented female art with clear direction.

8.Jiang Jie

Sculpture artist Jiang Jie is often defined as a feminist. In her early works, the subject matter of “baby” or “children” images can often be seen

She captured the self-perception of the proposition of “growth” in social life in a timely manner, and presented this confused process in the image of a “child” with a huge body and complex expressions. The weak and soft image forms a strong contrast with it. Therefore, her expression is also regarded by the outside world as “giving them more emotions with women’s unique sense of motherhood and delicacy, pointing directly at the fragility and helplessness of life, revealing women’s instinctive humanistic care.”

9.Xiao Lu

On February 5, 1989, two hours after the China Modern Art Exhibition was held in the National Art Museum of China, Xiao Lu fired two shots at his installation “Dialogue”, causing the exhibition to be closed immediately. Her friend Tang Song was arrested on the spot, and she surrendered hours later, and the two were detained for several days. This incident has aroused widespread concern at home and abroad. When surrounded by the media, Xiao Lu, who was only 26 years old and had just graduated, was completely at a loss for words, allowing Tang Song to explain the reason for the shooting according to his own ideas. This made both the art world and the public mistakenly believe that “Dialogue” was a work created by the two. Xiao Lu couldn’t face the real reason behind the shooting, besides, she was deeply in love with Tang Song at this time. Xiao Lu’s shooting was overshadowed by political overtones。

Because Chinese female artists generally lack artistic theoretical background, especially a clear understanding of feminist theory, they are unable to interpret their works effectively, and China also lacks feminist art criticism, so Xiao Lu’s The works are interpreted by male critics using a male perspective. This also created a gap for Tang and Song to become the interpreters and signers of the works. The reason is that Xiao Lu either hid behind Tang and Song or was not there every time he needed to explain himself. At the same time, the problem is that Xiao Lu is in love again. She didn’t learn from the mirror image she was killed. Once again she sacrifices herself to heterosexual illusions. Xiao Lu and Tang Song lived abroad for 15 years. Xiao Lu respected Tang Song’s wishes and neither wanted marriage nor children. But fifteen years later, their love came to an end and ended in a breakup. Only then did Xiao Lu realize in a panic—this was just another reenactment of a heterosexual illusion. She then shot fifteen shots at her own photo to express her farewell to the past fifteen years. However, for a woman, fifteen years may be too long, she gave almost most of her life for love. Xiao Lu is 44 years old. According to the doctor’s consultation information, this is the last period of a woman’s artificial insemination.

On March 3, 2012, at the “Bald Girls” exhibition, she prepared 30 albums of “What is feminism?”, and asked the audience to leave a message.And they shaved each other’s heads with Li Xinmo and Lan Jing. They used this extreme behavior to express their position and attitude as feminist artists.

Ref：

1.https://www.artda.cn/2009nianzhan-c-2460.html

2.http://en.xiaoluart.com/index.php?c=show&id=101

3.https://www.juanxucurator.com/37325373223291840065.html

I did a small intervention this week with my one of group members, Yu kong ,who is also a staunch feminist.

I chose a very famous Chinese modern love poem,The poet is a very excellent woman, one day he was inspired to write this poem after chatting with a friend with typical traditional machismo, expressing her independent view of love as a woman. In the poem, men are compared to oak trees and women are compared to kapok. The images of the two trees stand firmly together, interdependent and independent of each other.

《致橡树》-舒婷

我如果爱你——绝不像攀援的凌霄花，借你的高枝炫耀自己；我如果爱你——绝不学痴情的鸟儿，为绿荫重复单调的歌曲；也不止像泉源，常年送来清凉的慰藉；也不止像险峰，增加你的高度，衬托你的威仪。甚至日光。甚至春雨。不，这些都还不够！我必须是你近旁的一株木棉，作为树的形象和你站在一起。根，紧握在地下，叶，相触在云里。每一阵风过，我们都互相致意，但没有人，听懂我们的言语。你有你的铜枝铁干，像刀，像剑，也像戟；我有我红硕的花朵，像沉重的叹息，又像英勇的火炬。我们分担寒潮、风雷、霹雳；我们共享雾霭、流岚、虹霓。仿佛永远分离，却又终身相依。这才是伟大的爱情，坚贞就在这里：爱——不仅爱你伟岸的身躯，也爱你坚持的位置，足下的土地。

《To Oak》-Shu Ting

If I love you—not like a climbing lily flower, I show myself off with your tall branches; if I love you—never learn from an infatuated bird, repeating monotonous songs for the shade; not just like a spring, sent all year round Cool comfort; not just like a perilous peak, increasing your height and setting off your majesty. even daylight. Even spring rain. No, these are not enough! I must be a kapok tree near you, standing with you as the image of a tree. Roots, clinging to the ground, leaves, touching in the clouds. We greeted each other with every gust of wind, but no one understood our words. You have your bronze branches and iron trunks, like knives, swords, and halberds; I have my red flowers, like heavy sighs, and heroic torches. We share the cold wave, the wind and thunder, the thunderbolt; we share the fog, the haze, and the rainbow. It's as if they are separated forever, but they are forever attached to each other. This is great love, and constancy is here: love - not only love your stalwart body, but also love the position you hold, the land under your feet.

Then I read this poem to Yu Kong，and discuss my views and opinions with her, Women have long been the second sex that exists as a dependent man，especially in traditional Chinese agricultural society，But I also think that I am truly equal between men and women, just like two trees whose roots are connected, supporting each other and independent of each other.Facing the challenges of a long life together.

Then Inspired by this poem, I asked her to express his point of view by painting.

The final work 《Oak and Kapok 》

She explained that the large area of ​​black in this work represents gunpowder and the battlefield，Oak and kapok dance happily together in male and female figures，their roots and branches are joined together，In such a dangerous environment, Kapok always held its head high and danced bravely with the oak tree，They are like family, like lovers, more like comrades fighting side by side.

1，Ariel ，Ph.D., Academy of Fine Arts, Tsinghua University, Independent Curator.

Ms. Ariel’s project -NEST PLANING is the first large-scale installation exhibition focusing on women’s art in China.It is based on the interaction between female art and installation art. It exhibits 14 contemporary experimental samples and tries its best to present a new look of female experimental art.Nest, as a female symbol and metaphor of certainty, represents the power of territorialization。

2.TAO AIMIN

Tao Aimin (born 1974) works across media often combining installation with oil painting and video. Tao has worked on several projects which employ an anthropological perspective and aim to explore the personal histories and daily lives of women in rural China.

Her work is a work that combines the daily necessities of Chinese women’s life “laundry washboard”. The author went to the countryside to collect 60 old washboards, printed the image of the user of the washboard on the washboard, and displayed it in a dark space. The background music was the sound of washing machines in contemporary family life, which made the audience very It is convenient and natural to associate this appliance with women. The old woman in the photo taken alone is displayed together with the installation, in order to show the way of life of women and the relationship with the position of women in history. The washboards are juxtaposed, like a meandering river, and the image of the wrinkled old woman in the photo symbolizes the history and living conditions of women.

3.Cui Xiuwen

(1976-2018) was born in Heilongjiang. Cui Xiuwen is a Beijing-based artist who uses a variety of media techniques. His creative direction is mostly in the field of human gender and spirituality. Her experimental creation involves photography, video, and painting, and is a reflection on the self and the soul as the same object and subject. As the first Chinese artist to be invited to an exhibition at Tate Britain, Cui Xiuwen is undoubtedly regarded as a very important and innovative figure in Chinese contemporary art.

The Wonderful Existence of a Vacuum is Cui Xiuwen’s photography series since the publication of the “Angel” series in 2006. This series is a continuation of Cui Xiuwen’s self-exploration and artistic expression of women’s experiences in today’s Chinese society.

4.Xiang jin

When talking about academic propositions such as “contemporaneity and traditional media”, “women’s identity and universal human nature”, “seeing and being seen”, and “inner desire”, Xiang Jing and his creations are an unavoidable case.

through various research，I can found that Europe has a relatively mature support mechanism for women’s art.Such as feminist organizations, groups, foundations, societies.As a result, female artists can get more financial support, exhibition opportunities, and a more reasonable evaluation mechanism.In China, the female art ecology is more wild and scattered, the corresponding support mechanism has not been established, and there are few special funds and support plans. It is difficult to maintain the continuity of creation by relying only on female artists to fight for opportunities, even with the help of some critics and curators.

On the other hand, some young artists have gradually emerged in recent years and have begun to pay more attention to the private feelings of women, and tap the power of women through different art forms, rather than just calling for equality between men and women.Against this background, it seems necessary to form a feminist artist club.

Ref：

1.wenku.baidu.com. (n.d.). 女权主义在中国的发展 – 百度文库. [online] Available at: https://wenku.baidu.com/view/74d2c170bd23482fb4daa58da0116c175f0e1e65.html [Accessed 25 Oct. 2022].

2.http://art.china.cn/txt/2021-08/24/content_41654217.shtml

3.http://collection.sina.com.cn/ds/2017-08-06/doc-ifyitamv6007012.shtml

4.www.namoc.org. (n.d.). 中国当代女性艺术 – 中国美术馆. [online] Available at: http://www.namoc.org/cbjy/cbw/qks/qk2011_2492/qk201111/201303/t20130319_177574.htm [Accessed 7 Nov. 2022].

8.https://blindspotgallery.com/zh-hant/exhibition/existential-emptiness/

Sasha recommended me to get to know a very famous street artist,Bansky.

Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation.Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. His works of political and social commentary have appeared on streets, walls and bridges throughout the world.Much of his work can be classified as temporary art. A small number of Banksy’s works are officially, non-publicly, sold through an agency created by Banksy named Pest Control.

Some famous artwork

This work Girl with Balloon (also, Balloon Girl or Girl and Balloon) is a 2002-started London series of stencil murals by the graffiti artist Banksy, depicting a young girl with her hand extended toward a red heart-shaped balloon carried away by the wind. 

The gesture and the red balloon, an archetypal symbol of childhood and freedom, present a powerful message that can be read in a number of ways. Whether you see the girl as losing the balloon, or about to catch it, the meaning can be interpreted as a loss of innocence or the arrival of new hope and love.

This work depicts an urchin child at a sewing machine assembling a bunting of Union Jack patches. It was a protest against the use of sweatshops to manufacture Diamond Jubilee and London Olympics memorabilia in 2012.

This work depicting a masked man throwing a bunch of flowers. flowers themselves in the mages signify hope for a peaceful resolution of conflicts. By substituting a weapon with a bunch of flowers, Banksy is advocating for peace, and he opted to install this particular message in a high-conflict area.

From Banksy’s work ,i can see that he explore a unique and soft way to express his strong desires and politic views.Politic is a complex and sensitive thing, with this kind of art form ,it is more easy to be accepted and advocated by the public and government.

Feminism in China is also a very sensitive and unwelcome topic，if I want to express the modern feminism and gain influence and support ，I must find a special way to develop it ,and graffiti art seems could be useful .

Feminism Definition

feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes.Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male point of view and that women are treated unjustly in these societies.Efforts to change this include fighting against gender stereotypes and establishing educational, professional, and interpersonal opportunities and outcomes for women that are equal to those for men（Wikipedia)

Woman’s second sex status is so pervasive,and enduring.Patriarchal thinking believes that this gender order of male superiority is not only universal,but also will not change because it is formed naturally;while feminism believes that this gender order is neither universal nor unchangeable ,because it is not “naturally formed”but artificially constructed by society and culture.(Baidu)

History

The term “feminism” originated from the French word “feminisme,” coined by the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, and was first used in English in the 1890s, in association with the movement for equal political and legal rights for women.

Modern Western feminist history is conventionally split into three time periods, or “waves”, each with slightly different aims based on prior progress:

–First-wave feminism of the 19th and early 20th centuries focused on overturning legal inequalities, particularly addressing issues of women’s suffrage

–Second-wave feminism (1960s–1980s) broadened debate to include cultural inequalities, gender norms, and the role of women in society

–Third-wave feminism (1990s–2000s) refers to diverse strains of feminist activity, seen by third-wavers themselves both as a continuation of the second wave and as a response to its perceived failures(Wikipedia)

History  in China

Feminism was introduced to China by some scholars engaged in foreign literature   research in 1980s. in 1986,French feminist writer Sydmond de Beauvoir’s Secong sex is translated into Chinese and published .but because of various historical reasons and practical obstacles,it has not been widely spread .

In the 1990s,the establishment of international Woman’s Day became a new starting point  for feminism.The concept of gender is  gradually accepted ,and woman’s rights are included in the human rights category for the very first time.

In the 2003, Xiaoming Ai ,a professor at SUN Yat-Sen University ,founded the Gender Education Fprum at Sun Yat-Sen University and led students to perform in feminist drama-Vagina monologues.Only then did China’s feminist ideology gradually reach the pubic.

In the 2012，young woman’s advocacy group BCome established in Beijing,They resorted  to affirmative action in drama and performance.

Western feminism has developed into multiple genres and penetrated into all aspects of society,but in China ,feminism is still at the research stage of experts and scholars, and China has never had a large-scale woman’s movement as independent as the West.in this respect ,feminism in China is still in its infancy.

Status in China

 The parallel of traditional value and modern value is the status quo of Chinese feminism.

On one side,China has been a traditional agricultural society for thousands of years.man has the absolute dominance in agrarian society,Women tend to play roles that depend on men.In addition,The tradition Confucianism ,which is respected by the ruling class,chooses to teach woman to obey their father ,husband and son.Those deep-rooted ideas are still influencing contemporary Chinese.

On the other side.The introduction of Western feminist thought and the improvement of woman’s economic status have also affected the views of contemporary young generations to a certain extent.

The combination of these two values has given rise to some feminism known as feminazi and pastoral feminism.these two view has been countered on the internet.

1,Feminazi

Refers to some extreme feminists who hate men at core.

2,Pastoral Feminism

on some Chinese social platform ,for the right and obligation system in human value ,the pseudo egalitarianism that only ask for the right and does not undertake any obligations is called pastoral feminism as known as feminism buffetism

Problems

1,poor integration of theory and reality，The academic school emphasizes theory but lacks influence;The action school indulges in the form of “performance art “;the celebrities only comment on specific phenomena in a few words,which is neither systematic nor  essential.

2,Misinterpretation and resistance to man

3,misunderstanding of women

Ref:

1,wenku.baidu.com. (n.d.). 女权主义在中国的发展 – 百度文库. [online] Available at: https://wenku.baidu.com/view/74d2c170bd23482fb4daa58da0116c175f0e1e65.html [Accessed 25 Oct. 2022].

2,Ma (2014). The spread and development of western feminism in China.

3,https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-61105757

4,https://www.bbc.com/zhongwen/simp/chinese-news-55571627

5,https://www.awid.org/news-and-analysis/womens-rights-and-organizing-china

#How can i use arts to introduce modern feminism idea to Chinese society

This week ,i talked with some of our classmate about my project and my plan (set up a Chinese woman organization ),some of them are already feminist ,some of them are man  but quite interested in this topic and support it, they are all well-educated and have their own perspective about feminism in china and willing to join this feminism club to make some change.

We will have a meeting together and give our feminism club a new formal name，attracting more and more younger generation to join in and hold regular discussion.

Intervention plan:set up a Chinese woman organization

Background :

In china ,we don’t even have an unofficial woman group ，which prove that feminism is terribly underdeveloped, but we do have a lot of woman issue ((woman’s safety ,gender violently ,dress freedom and so on ), need to be considerate and solved.

VIsion:

The vision of this woman organization is to help woman live a better life in a patriarchal society, fighting for more right for them ,improving their social status ,winning the respect of man and finally achieving the greatest possible equality between men and woman.  

Form：

The organization will focus on the social woman’s issue in China ,but it do not like other woman group only provide training courses ,psychotherapy or make compaigns, it more related to art works .art will be a tool of education, a weapon for woman’s issue .

Steps：

 In the preliminary stage, i will try to contact some woman group in UK ,interview them and learn how to set up a woman organization ,how to recruit member ,how to run it and and how to raise money .

And then i will set up an offline woman group in UK, and the first group members will be Chinese student who are well educated and have a variety of talents in UK.they can contribute to our organization with their kinds of work(short film, painting ,photography ,fashion ,handicrafts and so on )，and those works will be showed on two Chinese influential platforms.At the same time ,this organization also welcome different people who are willing to contribute their work.when the organization becomes influential ,it could collaborate with more artists, holding offline exhibitions, arose social awareness .

Sasha’s feedback on 3,October

① physical disparity is one of the factors , but not enough.
② find out which factor is the most important and direct to woman’s safety issue
③and then try to find a solution

Reflection:

Before this week. All my interviews and audience is about Chinese woman. Normally, they are small,
Short and live In another country, which might be a reason why they are more likely to be attacked, and feel scared when they travel alone

Then i talk to some other nationality woman who are tall and strong, the answer is totally different.
“I never feel scared when I travel alone, sometimes i will meet some unfriendly man too, but it’s just a little bit weird” ,Tia said.

Then I relook my personal experience, when I was China, my own country, everything is familiar ,and security is quite good, even when I was travel alone or walk alone on the street at night, i never realize that this is a big problem ,but after I came to London，especially been robbed by several men in France, my feeling has changed, i will care many things that I used to ignore. i feel unsafe when a strong man or some idle teenager walk towards me ,i think it’s might be something like PTSD。
And when I ask myself about my question
What kind of woman safety issues (robbed, sexual harassment, gender-violence )
Where (at home, public, another country, unfamiliar place, walking on the streets )
What i want to do is to educate the man
What kind of man i want to educate

Intro:The reason why I always want to study feminism is that I believe women have great power and potential ,but they have not been fully accepted and utilized, the world is controlled  by man, they set the rules and tell woman what is right what is wrong ,what is beauty and what is ugly, after many years of women movement ,feminism are gradually growing in some countries and achieved success to some extent ,but it is not enough, we still have a long way to go.

At the beginning of my project ,my research is more about the male’s bullying in aesthetic area ,but during a journey in the independent study time , some personal experience (rob, sexual harassment)had totally changed the direction of research. I have realized that because of the physical disparity between men and women ,we can hardly be equal ,even we work hard ,study hard ,we can be a financially independent ,spiritual independent modern women ,but when a man’s fist hits us, woman can only suffer . safety is the basic right as human being , but women is still facing gender-based violence today which has been a global crisis in the world since the pandemic(2021),and i believe that is the most urgent thing we should cope with immediately.

Question:After a series of investigations ,I redefined my research question as -How can i help to ensure women’s safety based on the physical disparity between man and woman?I wish I can do something to improve the terrible situation.

Research Methodology :Then I used a range of research approaches to gather data and test ideas ,including observation ,internet research ,social media research ,archive research ,online survey, interview ,and experimental .First of all ,i went to many museums or art galleries to see different artworks related to feminism and observed peoples reaction,for example ,Feminine power-the divine to the demonic in the British Museum.Secondly ,i did a lot of recommended reading,like The second sex ,A room of one’s own and read many articles on the internet which give me a more comprehensive understanding of feminism and the state of Woman’s safety issue .Thirdly ,an online survey was design to ascertain the participants,More than 185 people involved to this survey, and 11 peoples shared that they experienced the similar gender-based violence,at the same time, i also did an offline interview in Wembley which located in the northwest of London and been considered a dangerous area.Last but not least ,I emailed to two women organizations(UK Woman and Forward)to apply to be a volunteer ,this could be a good chance for me to go deeper into the research.

Intervention: In addition ,two interventions was created to test my idea.The first one is an offline performance art ,a short , delicate,young Asian girl took a luggage and worn a black coat with poster and slogan(Please don’t hurt me when I walk alone) pined on it ,walking alone on the street in the outside of St.Pancras International station in London which have a mix of people. The results shows that male’s curiosity about a young girl are more than females,many man noticed my coat and two of them are even got very close to watch it，by contrast ,women always keep a proper distance.

The second one is an online campaign ,i registered an account on two influential platforms, the one is Redbook(Chinese Instagram and 80% user are educated females), another one is Weibo(Chinese Twitter),I also updated two blogs about feminism and woman’s safety issue, stakeholders could share their experience or advice in this place .The reason  I created this intervention is that when I collected data on the internet ,I found that we don’t even have a unofficially ,non-profit women organization in China ,and which proved the underdeveloped of feminism in my country.

Audience: My stakeholder are mainly related to Chinese females who also are the user of the two platforms, as well as the man ,woman charities ,woman organizations in London.

Strengths and weakness:The strengths of my project is that I have abundant resources to use in London,like different woman charities and organizations ,the development of Feminism in Western countries is far ahead of the east countries , i can learn a lot from them ,what more ,the free and open atmosphere is good for launching campaigns,by comparison,feminism in China is still a relatively sensitive topic and not welcome by man,unfamiliar to woman ,that is the biggest challenge for me ,i might face a lot of incomprehension and criticize.

Concluding: As for me ,with the in-depth study f project, Ido learned a lot from it ,firstly ,i gained a lot of knowledge about different female culture and history .Secondly ,i contacted many related people and initially established a network of relationships, their experience and suggestions is really helpful to my research . The most important is that I am getting to know myself better as a woman, my desire ,my passion, my power, and I am so happy to be able to make a little change to this world.

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