Zijing Deng is a chinese artist based in London now. She studied watercolor in her BA program at Hubei Institute of Fine Arts. Then she studied print at RCA from 2022 to 2023, where she conducted practical research on cultural symbols, feminism, and gender equality.
To challenge the symbols of female oppression and break the traditional chain, she starts to experiment with a non-patriarchal visual symbolism.
I challenge the empowerment in traditional elements
To break the captivity of women
I try to create a more flexible space
I create a space of anti-patriarchal empowerment through collective images
In order to preserve their specific characteristics and memories
I avoid giving them a specific narrative structure
I refuse to blindly submit to the social rules imposed on me
I like to use water-based materials
Through the transparency and randomness of water
I can translate my subtle, complex feelings into a visual language
I re-examine myself in my work
I need a more flexible and open structure, which is the reason that I used a combination of installation and painting. In this case, I could create a de-flattened space.
For the material, I have used transparent paper with a gelatinous surface, which can create the same flowing effect as watercolor. The combination of these two media allows the flow between liquid and natural light to be retained on a transparent flat.
I try to project my feelings on this symbol, on a perceptible symbolic projection. The effect of this symbolization is to offer the beholder a way of conceiving emotion and that is something more elementary than making judgments about it.[ Feeling and Form. New York: Scribner，Langer, Susanne K，1953.]
Then I use them as the starting point for a stream-of-consciousness narrative, many of which are quite random, irrational, and fragmented, connected only by loose and vague shadows and patterns. Life is a constantly changing picture and our viewpoints as well as our reactions to our viewpoints are important. The “stream of consciousness” approach in the psychological novel conveys this idea. Because our thoughts and vision are continuous, it is possible to apply this changing thought and vision pattern to an actual pattern on paper. Furthermore, I have deliberately avoided giving them a specific narrative structure to retain their specific characteristics
My use of the elements such as abacuses and lotus flowers is based on the symbolic meaning they have. Abacus is a counting tool that has a good omen of wealth in China. I used wire to make the abacus and use real lotus seeds that were painted in red to replace the abacus beads, when I see the abacus as a society, the beads are the people moving around inside, as an individual in the collective. I want to visualize the phenomenon of forcing the individual to form a collective and challenge it.
ps:For the full work in space please visit my website
After I took the Lotus apart
I explored the fertility
When I finish reading this zine
I will see the baby
After studying this anatomy
I see the lotus growing out of my body
The air, sunlight and water that I loved
Become taught in my veins
Surrounding me
When I stop thinking
I will feel happy
In traditional Chinese culture, the lotus flower represents fertility, Lianshengguizi (连生贵子), a chinese idiom about lotus, which expresses the idea of continuously giving birth to noble sons. In this case, I think it is also a passion for female groups, which gives a strong expectation of birth.
When women’s role in society is defined mostly in reproductive positions, education makes girls better wives and mothers. This kind of traditional concept is passed down from one generation to the next, it becomes a system, creating a micro-power in the society.
