The Paper has learned that the visual art exhibition "Wisdom and Power: Visible Women" opened recently at the Workers' Cultural Palace in Pudong New Area, Shanghai. 21 artists used more than 40 works to showcase the achievements and style of contemporary women through the three layers of logic of social identity, maternal inheritance and self-awareness.
Ten outstanding female representatives from various industries in Pudong New Area at the exhibition site
Exhibition View
Exhibition View
Whether it is the female workers on the assembly line of the Chongming Island Kitchenware Factory, the retired female workers of the Chongqing Hechuan Towel Factory, or Sister Ling who works as a farmer in the countryside of Guangzhou, the female performers holding red strings in the factory, or the yoga practitioners interacting with the sweeping robots, the mutually sufficient relationship between the physical energy and social value of female workers is clearly revealed.
The exhibition is divided into three sections: "The Power of Labor", "The Body is the Homeland", and "Self-Given Wisdom". Zhang Ting, a teacher at the China Academy of Art and the curator of the exhibition, said: "In the long history of mankind, women have never been absent from any evolution and breakthrough in the development of civilized society. The exhibition is not only a tribute to the representatives of female craftsmen, technology pioneers, industrial workers and other groups, but also wants to express the wisdom and power of women, which should be an infinite opportunity and precious wealth that can be seen and relayed."
"Sister Ling, You're Awesome" Single Screen Video
"Female Worker on Production Line" Art Giclee
In the "Power of Labor" unit, one can feel the bond between women and the land from "Sister Ling, You're Awesome"; read the incredible romanticism between the body and the machine from "Chongming Island 2" and "Ponytail"; and "Female Workers on the Production Line" presents the vivid life of the operators.
Installation Production/Symbol
At the exhibition hall, a large cotton installation "Production/Symbol" attracted the attention of many visitors. "Production/Symbol" is a work created by artist Zhou Wenjing for the first Hechuan Diaoyucheng New Media Art Festival. It was created specifically for the abandoned Chongqing Cotton Factory No. 4 in Hechuan, Chongqing. Before it was abandoned, the Chongqing Cotton Factory No. 4 mainly produced pure and blended yarns and grey fabrics of cotton and linen. Zhou Wenjing's grandmother also immigrated from Liaoning to Zhuzhou, Hunan from the 1970s to the early 1990s and worked in the city towel factory. After her grandmother passed away, Zhou Wenjing and her father found a large number of towels left in her closet, about 20 kilograms. So Zhou Wenjing sewed the waste towels into a 3-meter by 25-meter long sail by hand and hung it in the exhibition hall.
The presentation of “Production/Symbols” in the Chongqing Cotton Factory No. 4
“As a result, the next day when I went to the exhibition hall to take pictures, I happened to meet retired female workers from Chongqing Cotton Factory No. 4 who came to visit the exhibition in their old work clothes and took pictures in front of my works. I also hurried over to take pictures of them. This sudden image gave the work a three-dimensional life, and I was very happy.” Zhou Wenjing said.
Whether it is the care from childbirth and bonds, or the dialogue between generations through nature, whether it is the continuous transmission of human life information, or the civilized maintenance of women's language, it can be said that as the fertile soil for the destiny of this overall world to continue to move forward, the female body is both an energy force field and the spiritual homeland of each of us.
The Gift Photography
Scars usually represent the traces left by pain and suffering, but only the scars of caesarean sections are different. They are the place where the next generation "breaks out of the ground". They are like soil and rhizomes, full of the tension of life. The creator Wang Man's work "Gift" inlaid cream flowers with different flower languages on the mother's scars, and the flower language corresponds to their beautiful hopes for the next generation. The flower of life that blooms after experiencing pain is about warmth, about gestation, and about the essential state of life.
"Hometown Festival Limits" Video
In traditional Chinese folklore, on the 15th or 16th night of the first lunar month, there is a custom of "walking on bridges". At that time, women will go out together and walk along the corridors. This custom is still used by women in the water towns of Jiangnan. To this day, when there is a funeral or a wish at home, people usually choose a few old bridges and walk on them to pray for blessings and get rid of disasters. Artists Wang Yinjie and Yao Chunchun recorded this custom with the video "Rural Sacrifice Limits". In the video, Zhang Zhen, Wen Hui, and Wang Yinjie, three women, went to the rural sacrifice together and "walked on the bridge" according to the Chinese folk tradition to pray for relief from disasters for Zhang Zhen's mother, Huang Xiaopeng, and the living and dead they loved.
"Women Want to Speak, but Can't Speak to Themselves" Photography, Video
The creative team of "Women Want to Speak, but Can't Speak to Themselves" is Zhang Yingying, Xie Ruinan, Gu Yiling, Chen Yiqi, and Weng Yining from the Photography Department of the Film Academy of the China Academy of Art. Their works use contemporary photography, traditional images, and installations as media, and the content of their works involves research, attention, and thinking on the current living conditions of women and traditional Chinese intangible cultural heritage.
"Women Want to Speak, but Can't Speak to Themselves" Photography, Video
Nüshu is a magical symbol written by women and circulated only among women. Nüshu is popular in Jiangyong County, Hunan Province, and is still used by some elderly women. As the creative team began to pay attention to the current development of Nüshu, they found that those Nüshu enthusiasts who were attracted by the fantasy narratives and media renderings spread on the Internet and expected to discover the spirit of female resistance did not seem to get a voice that echoed their ideas. When the creators talked with Grandma He Huaying, the biological daughter of the last natural inheritor of Nüshu, Mr. Yang Huanyi, they saw the sincere and deep Nüshu that transcended the symbolic form. What reflects this vivid female image is not only the Nüshu characters, but also the mother-daughter relationship that has not faded to this day. For this reason, the creators involuntarily focused their attention here and took this encounter as the center of their creation.
In the context of social equality, the popularization of education, the rise of educated women, and the progress of an inclusive society are constantly improving the integrity of the entire human wisdom system. Women's self-reflection, self-confidence, self-reliance, self-consistency and self-love in the face of the possible dislocation between marriage, family, nature and self are the positive values of a healthy society that is constantly moving forward.
《Inlaid Softness》
The changes in the social environment and his own emotions in 2020 made the creator Song Jinshuo start to think and trace back what is trapping humans in the same place? When people are restricted, they can't tell whether they are adapting to the outside world or the outside world is changing them. Song Jinshuo's work "Inlaid Softness" resets the scene through text creation combined with real problems. Five videos illustrate the metaphorical opposition between the soft individual represented by the female body and the hard and cold entity, and then reflect the contradiction of the social space composed of individuals and groups.
Plant specimens drying documents
Plant specimens drying documents
"Document of Plant Specimens Sun-dried" is part of Tong Wenmin's "From South to North" project. One year after the creation of "Chongqing Weeds", the artist wanted to get closer to the weeds, so he transferred the weeds to his body and lived with the plants. Tong Wenmin spent a year collecting plants in Chongqing and Yunnan and pressed them into specimens, placing them on his body, and his skin was exposed to the sun to form the shapes of different plants. Each plant was returned to its original position each time, and each exposure lasted for about 5 hours, 19 days, and lasted for about two months.
Most married women's lives revolve around their elderly, husbands, and children. They are more likely to assume the identities of wives, daughters, and mothers. So where is "themselves"? This is a question that needs to be vigilant. The photographic installation work "Landing" is created by the creator Xue Mingyue, who appropriated three paintings with a clear sense of status in ancient Chinese traditional paintings ("Burenian Tu", "Xingyuan Yaji Tu", and "Double Screen Chess Game"), replacing the high-status figures in the picture with figures who are considered to be higher than the female "self" in the married life of women, showing the three states of women from left to right. The context of the painting and the context of the new relationship are contrasted, and the conceptual convergence is the clue and connection, suggesting the status of women in marriage from ancient times to the present, calling on women to find and rebuild themselves in marriage and balance the relationship between self and others.
The exhibition will last for one month.
- LGykYHyqkoM04/07/2025