La Chinoise, by Sunny Zheng 鄭沅芷說《中國女》

 9-15 May 2018 @ Floating Projects Sunny Zheng's first trial of a video essay critiquing the images of women in Chinese cinema, now presented as an installation comprising a video, a booklet, and embedded performances, her Bachelor's degree's graduation thesis. La Chinoise, an on-site video installation Sunny Zheng's graduation thesis-creation 《中國女》|  錄像裝置 鄭沅芷畢業作品 

"La Chinoise is a reflection on the long-term living conditions of Chinese women in China. In the form of a video essay, I critique Socialist Feminism (since 1949) and what came later to be called “pastoral feminism” (since 1979), using fragmentary found footage from both mainstream and independent Chinese cinema as well as news reports, to which I apply my critical artistic “processing.” My method is to deconstruct and reshape gender-biased representational practices in cinema. Fragmentation is an important strategy. I worked through more than 100 films produced in mainland China from Mao’s time till now to trace the impact or failure of feminist thinking. I turn the selected film fragments into a two-chapter video essay, and incorporate several case studies into a booklet which I then recite for the video. The entire project is an integration of a playful performance of texts and found footage segments. I discover that the rosy situation of feminism’s progress in China could be an illusion." 

這個作品是我對於中國女性的長期生活狀況的思考。以錄像散文的形式，我對自1949年以來的社會主義女權主義及自1979年以來所謂的“中華田園女權主義”進行了批判。其中使用了中國大陸主流電影和獨立“文藝片”以及新聞報導中的零碎鏡頭，並對其進行批判性藝術處理。通過對這些素材中帶有性別偏見的片段進行解構和重塑，我以打破線性結構、多重碎片化的手法，對從毛澤東時代起至今中國大陸製作的100多部電影進行了“再創作”，以表現其中女性主義思想的前進或倒退。這一作品包含兩個章節，和一本由幾個案例研究集成的小書。在創作過程中，我試圖創造一個文本和鏡頭片段的嚴肅而不失諷刺性趣味的整合。我也開始質疑：女性主義在中國的「進步」會否是一幅虛假圖景？

 About the artist...