Finding Her Place

By: Carol Ng-He
Submitted: 02/17/2010

Gaze is a response to the traditional Chinese men’s fetishism of aesthetics at the expense of women’s suffrage. In gazing the lotus shoes, an ancient Chinese man’s desire of small or “bound feet” is placed on women’s pain. Gaze confronts the viewers to rethink at what cost our contemporary culture makes in the pursuit of “beauty.”

In Back to the Root, a Chinese proverb reads “falling leaves return to the root” – which means one must return to the origin after pilgrimage. The word “Falling” and the re-surfaced gold leaf evoke this sense of longing to the “golden age” from one’s origin.