Exhibition title
‘Rupture and Regeneration: Women’s Resistance and Reimagination’
Core concept/theme
This exhibition focuses on the works of Chinese female artists and explores the oppression, struggle and reimagination experienced by women in the family, society and workplace. Through a variety of media such as installations, paintings, videos and performance art, the artists present the tension between traditional and modern female identities and reflect on broader social issues through personal experience. Their works reveal the traditional expectations of women in the family, gender inequality in the workplace, and the social regulation of women’s bodies and identities.
The exhibition is divided into two core parts: ‘Family’ and ‘Society’, focusing on the identity dilemmas of women in the private sphere and public space respectively. The artist’s works are not only an expose of oppression but also a testimony of resistance and reinvention. They seek an escape from the shackles and sow hope in the cracks.
Methodology
The exhibition adopts a thematic curatorial approach, dividing the works into two sections: ‘Family’ and ‘Society’. The narrative approach guides the audience to understand how feminist art responds to social structures.
Interactive nature: Some works invite the audience to participate, such as Chen Sijia’s ‘Matree, Patree’, which symbolises the challenge to the patriarchal family structure through the audience’s ‘intervention’ in the work.
Multi-media presentation: The exhibition combines performance art (e.g. Zhang San’s Tying the Knot), installation (e.g. Wang Weijue’s She and Her), painting and embroidery (e.g. All you have given me are scars) to present multiple female experiences.
Critical discussion: Through their works, the artists ask questions such as ‘How is the position of women in the family defined?’ and ‘How do women resist invisible boundaries in society and the workplace?’
Curatorial text: Family
‘Home: a harbour or a prison?’
Traditional Chinese families have deeply rooted expectations of women, with marriage, childbirth and devotion shaping women’s identities and self-identity. This part of the exhibition explores the pressures women face in the family, the conflicts in their identities, and their rebellion against the family structure.
Zhang San’s series of works such as ‘Tying the Knot’ uses performance art to record how she replaces herself with a dummy to ‘get married’, symbolising a questioning of the institution of marriage.
‘One baby in each arm’ expresses the fear of women being urged to give birth through distorted images of babies.
‘Death Roots and New Blossoms’ expresses the struggle and rebirth of women under traditional discipline through the collection of hair, transforming ‘discarded body parts’ into new life.
There is also Chen Sijia’s ‘Matree, Patree’, which questions the tradition of patriarchy.

Wang Weijue’s ”she and her”, this series of works, made of red wool felt, shows the partial expressions of different female figures in the same language form. It reflects the health and emotional distress faced by women at the centre of their families and society.

Curatorial text: Society
Can women have true subjectivity in public space?’
Women’s voices in the public sphere are often silenced. Social control of women extends from the body to the workplace, and then to the struggle for public discourse rights. This part of the exhibition explores how women face workplace inequality, the social gaze on the body (male fixation), and how individuals can rebel.
Zhang Yisu’s ‘Start with the Cucumber’ uses performance art to simulate a mechanised work environment, exploring the reality of women being marginalised and undervalued in the workplace.
Ji Xiayu’s ‘Crime Scene’ uses installation art to present the silent suffering of women in sexual harassment experiences, inviting the audience to consider how to change society’s indifferent attitude towards gender violence.
Exhibition goals
Challenge traditional perceptions: The exhibition hopes to break down society’s inherent perceptions of women’s identities and provoke the audience to think deeply about family, the workplace, and social structures.
Build empathy: Through a variety of media, the multiple identities of women in society are shown, allowing the audience to feel the collective memory behind the individual experiences of the artists.
Stimulate discussion: Encourage the audience to discuss after the exhibition, think about how gender power relations affect individual lives, and how to bring about change in their daily lives.
In these works of art, we see the double predicament faced by women in the family and society. There are also works that reflect how women break free from the shackles of the family and fight in society. We also see them searching for themselves in the midst of their broken lives, and crying out their unheard voices in silence. Their stories are also the stories of countless women.