Word Bondage
2022
Painting and video
My project is inspired by the phenomenon of the restraint and
insult of some words to women in the Chinese context. In
Chinese, the original meaning of some words is neutral, but after
social development and language evolution, they have new
derived meanings. People of different genders also have
different reactions and attitudes when using these words. The
differences in the responses and attitudes of men and women
made me think about the question: what exactly are women
experiencing in today's Chinese context? They are ridiculed,
restrained, and insulted by these words. When they use the
language to fight back, they also hurt themselves. They cannot
escape this male-dominated context.
According to this theme, I did a questionnaire survey on
“women-related swear words”, and came up with the ten words
that most disgust the public, especially women, and formed two
outcomes: video and paintings. I invited five men and five
women to read ten words aloud. These ten words were distorted
in meaning after language evolution or were deliberately used
by people today to insult women. The attitudes of both genders
towards these ten words vary dramatically. The paintings use
comprehensive materials to show that women are summarized
and influenced by some "labeled" words at various stages in their
lives. They are soaked and stabbed by some offensive words,
until all values are condensed into a one-sided focus and
denied again.
