Bound : Art Project and Writing from Jessica Chan (my favorite daughter)

“Bound” is a three part series featuring three groupings of Chinese women. 

It is meant to create a dialogue about the subtle, yet very alive and continual oppression of women through pressures created by society. There has always been a specific ideal image of the Chinese woman that has shifted throughout history. Beginning in the 10th century and lasting until the advent of the Communist reign, Chinese women were expected to partake in the practice of foot binding. By bending, and therefore breaking, their feet into the desired lotus blossom shape, these women were considered socially and economically attractive, as the practice was widespread among the wealthy. 

Bound feet were also considered sexually arousing yet many times the process led to gangrene and foul smelling bacteria growth. With physically bound feet, women remained immobile, literally and figuratively, controlled by a male-dominated society in all aspects of their lives. This type of control is not as apparent in today’s society, but its presence still exists in various forms. Chinese women are expected to be quiet, submissive, petite, and pale-skinned while the opposite translates into undesirability.

The first piece in the series is a hand bound book, printed on a press using linoleum block and monotype techniques. The faces are visible, but are also blocked by a lotus image to reflect the silence of women under oppression and to function as a reference to bound feet.

Each woman is either a model or a movie star and represents the ideal Chinese woman of modern society. Each face becomes completely visible only when the time is taken to undo the knot that holds the pages the together, otherwise each one remains partially blocked.

Every woman has a story regarding a time where they were discriminated against based on their gender, ethnicity, or both, but the truth is not revealed unless someone stops to take a step up to look closer and take action.

The second piece is another hand bound book made out of pen drawings on tissue paper double-couched inside handmade sheets of abaca. This collection of images is of faces belonging to Chinese women that I know personally, including an image of my own face. 

A more intimate piece, this book is meant to represent the everyday woman of Chinese or Asian descent, all who have felt the pressures of societal expectations and its consequential pain. The binding in this piece is much more literal than the first book as the faces are between two sheets of paper that have fused together during the drying process. 

The book is meant to help viewers visualize exactly how small the bound foot of a grown woman is, as it has a width of 3.5 inches, the ideal foot size. A translation of the printed book as well as the message was used to represent the supposed development of the position of women within society while it is apparent that the standards have not changed.

The third piece consists of a collection of paper made to resemble amber. Each amber piece is a pen drawing on abaca that was double-couched between one yellow and one orange sheet of handmade abaca. The amber shape and color was selected in order to reference history as well as a sense of halted time. When amber forms, its victims are stopped in their tracks, slowly die, and result to appear frozen within the fossilized tree sap. They are perfectly preserved and can be viewed from all angles. 

Amber is valued for these aesthetic qualities as well as for its scientific value. Like the creatures captured within what is considered a valuable material, women from all historical periods have been trapped within a façade of beauty and apparent demureness. What appears beautiful on the outside sometimes hides the agony and pain on the inside. The pieces are displayed as if from a precious collection, just like women are seen as prized possessions. 

The images are of the faces of Chinese women from around the 1800’s and are also bound within paper. These women belonged to a different generation and therefore a different set of societal standards as they were the ones who experienced foot-binding. Bound feet were shown off using beautiful silk wrappings, but hidden underneath those fabric exteriors was the deformed evidence of an excruciating formation process.

The series makes a full circle from the past to the present and intends to shed light on the vicious cycle of perpetuating societal standards which is continued by people’s expectations and the need of women to appear desirable or receive acceptance. Although these pieces speak from a Chinese perspective, the message can be extended to encompass woman from every ethnic background because the suffering is universal.