Introduction
In 2021, I participated in the Chongwu Ancient City artist residency project jointly initiated by the British Council and the Shanghai Ruan Yisan Heritage Foundation. If you enter “Hui’an Woman” on the internet, there are countless beautiful words about this group, such as hardworking, thrifty, housekeeping, kind. However, more keywords like feudalism, marriage customs of societal separation between husbands and wives, and collective suicide appeared when you research further, which covered a veil of mystery to Huidong women and brings attention from people in different fields focus. After I arrived in Chongwu with excitement, I searched hard for the figures of “Hui’an Woman”, but upon meeting them, I can only see their expressionless and serious faces under the colourful and complicated costumes. Why in “real” life are they so far from the image on the internet? As an outsider, I should be very unfamiliar with the local culture, but I saw in them parallels of myself, which could also be an epitome of Chinese women in contemporary society. Therefore, I created a series of visual images through sound coding, which I named as “Listen to Her” in first stage of the project.
After sharing my work with the public, more people showed interest in this group and more question were asked. Firstly, many people are curious about the story of Huidong women and the sounds in my work. Moreover, the local people cannot empathise with the work. Hence, I would like to do something that can not only make the public feel the situation of Huidong woman, but also make the local people interested and rethink about themselves in second stage. In the second stage of the work, it will still be based on the theories of Everyday Life and Subjectivity but with more focus on how the images of Huidong Women has been constructed by different sounds from the social space, how their discourse and subjective images are squeezed into contemporary society, as well as how they break through the inherent public impression to build their subjectivity in contemporary.
Research Questions
- How were Huidong women purposefully constructed into different images in different social stages?
- How to make Huidong women and even the locals re-observe their everyday life from the perspective of viewers, so as to reflect on own subjectivity?
- How many “Hui’an Woman” in contemporary society, and are you “Hui’an Woman”?
Aims
- To collect the images of “Hui’an Nü” constructed by people or organisations with different identities, including state discourse, scholars, artists and local men, to show the lack of discourse power of women in the Huidong area in contemporary society.
- To show concrete and meaningless images of Huidong women’s everyday life and specific discourses, to make the local people interested in it.
- To show the construction process of “Hui’an Nü” to make the audience think about how a “label” is created by the country and society under different interests and purposes. To think further about who could be the next “Hui’an Nü” in this “civilised society” full of discourses, labels, theories, concepts, and definitions.
Objectives
Thesis film will be a short film that integrates telling, recording, bibliographic analysis, interviews, and abstract images, which will connect the gaps between political discourse, academic research, and research subjects, thereby constructing a discourse space that transition between the “real” and “unreal”, the rational and emotional.
Methods
Literature review: Experimental Film in Contemporary Arts
“Avant-garde film is almost indefinable. It is a constant state of change and redefinition.” (A.L. Rees, 2019) However, Gilles Deleuze (1989) summarises that the breakthrough value of the experimental film is that it is intercepting time directly, rather than the plot. It obtains time itself, the emotion and morality of time. Narration is dispelled, revolutionary or experimental in the extreme respect for time. The experimental film completely rejects time, it only own the length of time and no time, which is like a visual instruction. (Deleuze, 1989) In terms of the root of the experimental film, opening with Nam June Paik and through to Shirley Clarke, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Fei Cao from around the world, from Andy Warhol through to Stephen Dwoskin and more recent artists such as Bing Xu, Patty Chang, Gerard Byrne and Yuan Zheng. These avant-garde artists continue to expand and implode the traditional forms of art, from multi-screen projection to auto-destructive art. (A.L. Rees, 2019) Content production is also changing at the same time, from the making of new materials to extracting existing images. It could be said that experimental film itself derives more directly from the context of modern and post-modern art than from the history of cinema. (A.L. Rees, 2019)
In 1965, with the advent of portable video playback device, Nam June Paik injected it’s use into his artistic creation, which made him the first person in history to use video as a medium. His works such as “TV Buddhas”(1974) and “Tower”(2001) combining Eastern elements such as Buddha with the most advanced technologies, using TV and video as the fundamental carrier, so as to embody the state of humans who are trapped by technologies, and show the contradiction between people, technology and everyday life vividly. Ethnographic documentary of Trinh T. Minh-ha is also a form of contemporary art that is different from film. “It does not discuss the content of images, has no narrative, and even refuses to speak about the images, and denies the hopeful observer the opportunity to record, categorise, and save an(“other”) culture”, such as the work of “Reassemblage” (1983) uses silence and rhythmic music as background music to provide the audience with a sense of disorientation in meaningless images. (Trinh, 1983) On the contrary, “The Last Step of Touch Down” (2020) is a thesis film by Yuan Zheng. He uses three-channel video to connect the story of his everyday life in growth with the iconic political event, Nixon’s visit to China. It has shown a life trajectory of a family under the great changes of the times and makes the audience repeatedly wander between reality and fiction, macro and micro. zthere is great value in Avant-garde film as a form of art-creation in Huidong women, “the dynamics between sound and silence; or the way an image, a voice or music relates to one another and acts upon the viewer’s reception of the film. Rhythm is a way of marking and framing relationships. Through music, we learn to listen to our own biorhythms; to the language of a people, the richness of silence; and hence to the vast rhythm of life.”(Trinh, 2005)
Literature review: Female Subjectivity Showing in Experimental Film Arts
Female subjectivity is expressed to varying degrees in contemporary art. They express the relationships between women and themselves, national politics, and men through the body, such as hair, skin, organs, plants and other elements. As an artist, the most important thing is how to avoid becoming the agent of the object of creation. (Meskimmon, 2003) As Stuart Hall summarise Foucault’s ideas like:
This subject of discourse can become the bearer of the kind of knowledge which discourse produces. It can become the object through which power is relayed, but it cannot stand outside power/ knowledge as its source and author. (Hall 1997: 55)
If, as Estelle Barrett (2007) claimed, artistic creation is a practice of understanding knowledge, then if the artwork actually breaks away from the source of creation and becomes an independent entity and spreads widely, can we say that the artwork has stood on the research object and it has become the source and author of the object? Meskimmon (2003) sustains an approach in which she positions herself as a partner in a dialogue with women who make art rather than a privileged interpreter of artworks. By reconceiving her methodology (in Deleuzian terms) through actions and process, her observations enable different articulations of female subjectivity. (Heather, 2015) The female subjectivity in Trinh’s works are shown in different ways. Although Trinh has always emphasised that her work is only “speaking nearby”, it is inevitable to construct some images of women as social and political agents from the perspective of female subjectivity. For instance, Surname Viet Given Name Nam (1989) depicts women’s resistance, endurance and survival status when adapting to new regimes of power within the nation and beyond its borders. Although the interviews in the film could be necessary, how can the audience view the “real” images after they have been edited and reconstructed objectively? In contrast, I think that Reassemblage (1983) truly presents the subjectivity of the local people in Senegal. It has no narrative, no political construction, only simple language explanations, and the voices and behaviours of Senegal. In fact, when an artist’s work or itself is influential enough, their work could inevitably become the spokesperson of their research object.
Archival research: Constructing Hui’an Woman —— State Discourse
“Hui’an women” refers to the females who live in Huidong of Fujian, mainly distributed in Chongwu, Shanxia, Jingfing and Xiaozuo villages. (Baidu, 2022) But in terms of history, their figure is always changing with politics. During the Maoist decades, the standard of Hui’an women was defined as feudal, backward, and oppressive in local society, which should be eradicated in order to forge a new socialist order. (Friedman, 2006). For example, traditional clothing was not recommended. The custom of early marriage and married women staying in their natal home was outlawed, and unproductive labour like housewives was not allowed. With the reform and opening up, by contrast, Friedman believes that the image of Hui’an women has defined the feminization and commodification of ethnicity in the market economy, and new standards of civilization and culture promoted by state-sponsored “socialist spiritual civilization”campaigns (2006:17). For instance, tourism entrepreneur Zeng Meixia runs a “Hui’an woman style garden”, which provides a range of entertainment services such as taking photos with, having food and beverages served by young females dressed in “Hui’an woman” style clothing. Until today, in the times of Xi, liberation and open consciousness were replaced by the labels of thrift, hard-working and beautiful. They are portrayed as models of perfect women. Although there are so many forms of difference, like ethnic, gender, characters, and social responsibilities produced by different civilizing projects, it still cannot map a full image and identity of Huidong women and it is worth researching indeed.
Field work: Constructing Hui’an Woman —— Scholars / Artists
The research and artworks of scholars and artists in the group of Hui’an Woman also keep changing in different historical stages, which are interweaved with the images of Hui’an Woman advocated by the state, and constantly shape the images of Hui’an Woman in society. In the past hundred years, the study of Hui’an Woman has shifted from history, anthropology, theology to art aesthetics, and completed the transformation from deep and remote exploration of women’s ethnic origin in Hui’an to romantic and simple description of the folk customs of Hui’an Women. (Zhang, 2018) Particularly, around 1990s, after western feminist theories and national political studies were introduced into China, feminism and gender concepts began to be integrated into the study of folk customs of Huidong women. For example, the academic research of “Intimate Politics”(2006) and “Rebuilding Women: A Study on the Image Changes of Hui’an Woman”(2009) summarised Huidong women as the manifestation of the needs of national politics in different periods, and try to discuss the resistance reaction of Huidong women in the practice of image rebuilding. The subjectivity of Huidong women began to appear among the intellectuals in the 1990s. (Zhang, 2018) In addition, the artistic creation about Huidong women has coincided with the image of Huidong women advocated by the state since the 1990s. For instance, the novel “The Twin Bracelets
”(1991) created by Zhaoming Lu in 1988 and the film of the same name constructed an image of Huidong women who seek spiritual liberation under societal pressures. After 2000, the image of Huidong women has been shaped as a representation of Chinese women’s image and a carrier of Chinese traditional culture heritage. A series of oil paintings and sculptures, such as “ Quietly Waiting, (2014, Wu) and “Sweet Potato Flowers”(2020, Kong), (Fig 2.) have shaped Huidong women into a spiritual symbol of beauty, diligence and perseverance.
Interviews: Constructing Hui’an Woman —— Huidong Locals
Based on my everyday observation and conversation in the Huidong area, especially the Chongwu Ancient City and Xiaozuo Village, I cannot separate Huidong women form Huidong men or talk about them as opposites, although many research resources showed that there is an opposition between local men and women in Huidong. In other words, they emphasise that Huidong men are the beneficiaries of local traditional social customs and social changes, while women are the victims. For instance, “Chongwu Research”(1990) emphasised the frequent suicide of “Hui’an Woman” before 1950, attributing it to the oppression of the local social gender system, which through the role of culture, politics and economy, normatively determined women’s discourse and identity making women retreat to the margins of society and cling to their subordinate status to men. The anomie of the social gender system led to the mass suicide of local women. Furthermore, in the process of interviewing local people, they also unintentionally showed that men are more valuable than women. Such as Zhang who is one of the locals said: “In the past, for example, I have two girls, and (according to the Family Planning policy) I could not have any more children. So I may adopt a boy, yes, adopt a boy.” (Fig 3.) At the same time, local women also showed resistance, “I knew only that I don’t want to marry someone I don’t know. After a quarrel with my mother, I ran to the man’s house and withdrew the marriage contract with his mother by myself!”
However, although these appearances show that men and women are opposites, they show a more interdependent state in everyday life. The example of a young couple breaking the local social norms and living together in Shenzhen in the film of “The Twin Bracelets
”(1991) is a real reflection of life. Therefore, it is very unreasonable to overemphasise the subjectivity of local women through artistic practice. Whether it was the Mao era or the Xi era, it has created a specific image of Huidong people, and “Hui’an Woman” as a typical and virtual label has been affixed to local women by official propaganda, such as naming the dam as “Hui’an Woman”. I believe that through artistic practice, local people, regardless of gender, should think about their subjectivity and self-image under social norms.
Experimentation in Practice and Process
My practice was diversified, which includes text recording, digital image production, film editing, language translation (especially Chinese poetry translation), playback equipment, etc. The final film is named as “Who is Hui’an Woman?”. In detail, firstly, I used the way of proposal writing and storyboarding to sort the core aim and the main structure of the film. (Fig 4.) Secondly, I repeatedly analysed the materials I collected, checked for missing materials and reintegrated them. At this stage, practice and research were highly integrated, and critical combination improves the context of film. For example, how to show the current state of Huidong women in the film is the most important thing. Minh-ha believes that Chinese people think that nature is dynamic. Some Chinese artists paint only one mountain in their life, but no one waiting is the same. It records the state of the mountain, and also records the changing of artists’ emotions (Minh-Ha, 2005) And is Nanyin, which has been handed down by Huidong women for a hundred years, not the best form to reflect their current state? So, I invited Huidong women to sing Nanyin as the last part of my film. It is worth mentioning that the translation of the lyrics in the film is the most difficult part of the whole process, because that which I need to translate is not the text itself, but the interpretation and understanding of the song by Huidong women behind the text. After communicating with the singer online, I think my translation of the lyrics has achieved a good balance between the original lyrics and the meaning of local singers interpretation.
In terms of the filmmaking structure and content, it is clearly expressed that the film shows that the four perspectives (state, researcher, local men and local women) demonstrate the different images constructed of Huidong women. If “Listen to Her”(2021) is to extract and display the cultural elements of Huidong women to the outside world, then “Who is Hui’an Nü?” Could be a return process of showing the status of Huidong women to themselves by combining wider political discourses, scholarly research and locals’ dialogues with western theoretical methods. Moreover, incorporating viewers into a part of the creation, and thinking about how to immerse the viewers in the movie and enjoy it is also a part that must be considered in the creation. The immersive environments cause one’s own perception to become the object of reflection and led many to deeper understanding of themselves and their relationship to the external world, whose access to the world is mediated visual perceptual faculty with particular features, limitations and abilities.(Sherman, 2017) Once the emotions of people are motivated, it will produce the power to turn thinking into doing. (Eliasson, 2016) I made the film as the form of dual-channel and tried to show it on two opposite old TVs at same time. However, this method is unfriendly to viewers who do not understand Chinese and Hokkien because of the low pixels. So, in the end, I chose to use two projectors to play the dual-channel video and place them opposite each other, so that the audience can experience the sense of struggling between two screens and think about the process of state power and society constructing group images.(Fig 5.)
Ethical Considerations
Human beings are deserving of respect and protection as inalienable rights (United Nations 1948). This is equally the case during research activities as it is in any other circumstances. In this research and art practice, all interviews and the people who appeared in the film have the right not to be injured and mistreated, as well as they have the right to retain their portrait rights, the film will also obtain the consent of the relevant personnel before the film is published. This research has been conducted in the accordance with the GSA ethic policy.
Conclusion
“Xiaoyu, I would like to hold a small concert, can you help me let more people see it?” Qiong said. I think this sentence could not be more appropriate as the final result and summary of the entire article and the project. Qiong is native of Hui’an who I have kept in touch with and had in-depth exchanges with during my research on the culture of “Hui’an Woman”. She knows what I am doing and supports me very much. Just a few days after I finished the film, Qiong sent me a message saying that she wanted to do a small Nanyin concert. Whether it is to promote her hotel or to love Nanyin culture, the most important thing is that she wants to express herself, no longer rejecting the label of “Hui’an Woman”, but starting to formalise the identity of “Hui’an Woman” and rethink the relationship with it.
The work of “Who is Hui’an Woman?” and the whole project is meaningful. It took two years and experienced the whole process from offline to online, from field work to transnational remote creation. It started at the beginning of the pandemic and ended at the end of the pandemic. From the display of the contemporary image of Hui’an Woman to the thinking of how to construct Hui’an Woman. I think the whole project has completed the process from Hui’an Woman to the world, and then returning form the world to Huidong women. The end point of contemporary art is not what is created, but what is broadened.
171 total views