Chuqiao Liu
I choose photography as my medium, as it directly brings about visual perception, allowing people to abandon the confinement of language for a short period of time.
Humanity as a broad subject has always fascinated me, especially gender and equality, time and memory, the individual and emotions, which allow me to be inspired to use photography as the medium to narrate stories within images.
Miss
Miss explores themes and issues associated with historic and contemporary feminism in China. Asking my models to wear the ubiquitous Chinese garment, the Cheongsam as a symbol of emancipation, whilst simultaneously being contained in a restrictive wooden box-like structure, symbolic of the patriarchy, my photographs aim to initiate a dialogue on the current state and tortuously slow development of women’s rights and gender equality in China today.
They
Weeping was a sign of weakness; tenderness and delicacy were qualities that only women were supposed to possess; men were supposed to be rugged, strong and full of power. Men would be expected to have these qualities, which is a physical strength demanded by the past society – even if this idea, eventually, would be history. They focus on the study of masculinity. It uses androgynous flowers as a medium to question the validity of gender temperament and is my first attempt at a gender equality series.
