Gentle Violence: To Be a Devoted Mother/Daughter
柔情暴力：做一个尽职的母亲/女儿
2023
The family has been a topic that I have avoided for years because of past traumas. After finishing my seven years’ studying abroad journey in America, the year staying at home in China has finally given me the opportunity and strength to dig into my biggest fear and personal struggle. Gentle Violence: To Be a Devoted Mother/Daughter focuses on the intergenerational relationship between my grandmother, my mother, and myself. What I believe made the three of us a typical case to study is that we face both the collision between traditional and modern values because of our age spans and the one between Eastern and Western values because of my study abroad background. In a series of works including photos, a moving portraits video and a piece of merging portraits, I aim to examine the unique inheritance and collision of values and identities in the female lineage of a contemporary Chinese family.
Both my grandmother and mother hold high standards of themselves and are very controlling in their lives. They dedicated themselves to making an ideal decent traditional Chinese family that values filial duty and responsibility. From the eyes of outsiders, they perfectly resemble a traditional image of Chinese mothers, who are sacrificial characters in the families, squeezing out every drop of their time and efforts to raising a better next generation and even the one after the next.
When I was a child, I was taught by my grandmother and mother to follow their footsteps. Later, during the years of studying abroad, my observation of women from other countries and study of modern feminist values made me question the principles my grandmother and mother have passed on to me. From their occasional outbursts, I peeked at their repressed individualities and emotional needs under their selfless facades. Among the three of us, the mothers took the daughters responsible for realizing their unsatisfied wills in the name of love and often fell into despair with their daughters’ failures. With a higher demand for personal freedom, I strongly rejected such tormenting bondage. My grandmother and mother saw me as a rebel and betrayer.
My mother's recent divorce unraveled between us the long-suppressed pain and bitterness, which was eventually put to rest by my grandmother's suicide attempt. Since then, my grandmother and mother have faced up to their long-denied mental illnesses. And together with me having received psychotherapy in America earlier, we began a journey of redemptions by reconciling with our past and ourselves. My relationship with my mother and my mother's relationship with my grandmother are like mirrors to each other. For the three of us, the family of origin was like a ceaseless raging tide. A confrontation will continuously flow between the three generations until each finds a true emotional outlet.
My grandmother sold her old apartment a long time ago. We took this picture outside under its window. Revisiting the old neighborhood brought back memories of a peaceful old time when my understanding of love and family was yet shallow. Looking back, I could see that there were signs for everything happened later, right at the beginning. My grandmother and mother’s stubborn personalities were at the root of their unhappy marriages. I was a stubborn one as well, but only more rebellious. I refused to be tied to my mother in the same torturing symbiotic relationship that she had with her mother. My resistance made my mother and grandmother start to reflect on their life experiences and their deeply repressed selves as well. We all wanted to jump out of the seemingly inescapable negative impact of the family of origin on intimate relationships and rebuilding of the self.
Monologue of Three Generations
Duration: 2 minutes.
This video consists of moving portraits of my grandmother, mother, and myself and a narration including quotations from our daily dialogues. When taking the videos, I adopted the methodology Andy Warhol used in his Screen Tests, in which the only instruction for the subjects is to let them sit alone in an empty space while confronting the camera. The only change was that I also asked my grandmother, mother, and myself to think about each other and our past during the shooting. I aimed to make portraits preserving our most honest states.
Merging Portraits of Three Generations
Material: inkjet prints on Xuan paper, acrylic container, water. Size: 14 X 20 cm.
This video documents the portraits of my grandmother, mother, and myself gradually merging in water. The similarity and differences in the facial features between the three generations are a metaphor for the reiteration and alteration of our personalities and destinies.