First a reflection on the theme. WHY‘s original theme was an exhibition of negative emotions, without restrictions on region, gender or age. But the range of topics is very large and only a small number of female artists from China have provided works for WHY exhibition. So I narrowed it down to women and negative emotions at the fifth week. In the sixth week, I still didn’t collect any works from artists outside China, so I decided to focus on contemporary Chinese women. In the seventh week, when I sorted out the artists’ works, I found that the works I collected did not include works with themes such as marriage and pregnancy, so in the seventh week, I further narrowed the theme to contemporary Chinese women who are neither married nor pregnant. In addition, I made a questionnaire on unmarried, childless women in contemporary China and posted it on my Chinese social media. According to the survey, the negative emotions of contemporary Chinese women who are neither married nor childless mainly come from six aspects: family trauma, love factor, interpersonal communication, life pressure, appearance anxiety and sexual harassment. Therefore, in the WHY exhibition, I will mainly display artworks from these six sources of negative emotions.
The second part is about the artist. At present, I invited five contemporary artists from China to provide works of art related to these six sources. I would like to introduce artists and artworks about sexual harassment and life pressure. In the section on sexual harassment, the artist Jingshu Zhang told me about the sexually suggestive looks and language she feels around her when she wears a dress. This made her feel uncomfortable, so she created Dress, a dance work, and provided dance videos for the WHY exhibition. （figure 1）
Figure 1 Screenshot from Skirt dance video ©️Jingshu Zhang
In addition to Jingshu Zhang’s work, I would also like to share Siyuan Dong ‘s work Shangwei, an oil painting that tells the story of her confusion about whether she should pursue higher education in the face of the future. This artwork, created by Siyuan Dong after his undergraduate graduation, shows corridors and stairs that can be seen everywhere on the artist’s campus. And connects the staircase to the Utopian philosophy of Ernst Bloch, who said that the essence of life is “ambiguity.” To an artist, she is as uncertain as the end of a staircase.（Figure2）
Figure 2 ShangWei©️Siyuan Dong
The third part, which is very instructive and critical to me, is Theaster Gates, White Cube. This is because I plan to plan the online space of WHY in the way of White Cube, and use simple White walls with different brightness lights and display ways to highlight the artist’s works. “Particular to the white cube is that it operates under the pretense that its seeming invisibility allows the artwork best to speak; it seems blank, innocent, unspecific, insignificant. Ultimately, what makes a white cube a white cube is that, in our experience of it, ideology and form meet, and all without our noticing it.” (Filipovic,2005) While browsing the website of Theaster Gates, White Cube, I found that most of their exhibitions and artworks are in the White Cube space. And against the White Cube, the artworks are in the centre. Therefore, I think Theaster Gates, White Cube is a good example to learn from. In addition, I saw Feminism Ya Mang: Exhibition Video on Youtube.（Video 1） I saw that the wall of this exhibition is mostly pink, pink gives me a very gentle feeling. However, I want to use white walls to represent women, white can reflect all kinds of color light. We must admit that women’s spirit and survival ability are extremely strong. Therefore, I want to use white as a metaphor for women’s tolerance、strength and greatness. It’s worth noting that Feminist Ya Mang exhibition has a lot to teach me. For example, there are many items that women use in this exhibition hall, such as nail polish and wigs. In addition, the exhibition also uses different projectors and video playback devices. So, whether it’s the placement of objects or how the video is played, it’s very useful information for me.
Video 1: Feminism Ya Mang: Exhibition Video from Youtube
The last part is audience participation. First of all, since my personal project is held online, I will release information related to WHY exhibition on my social media one week before the exhibition, such as exhibition summary, artist information, etc. In addition, audience participation in group events. I will cooperate with the publicity team to publicize our collective activities to the public.
Reference list
Filipovic, Elena. “The global white cube.” The manifesta decade: Debates on contemporary art exhibitions and biennials in post-Wall Europe (2005): 63-84.
