Through the Body, a Primary Exhibition of the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, will be the largest exhibition of lens-based work by contemporary Chinese women artists to be mounted outside of China. Focusing on photography and video, the exhibition is structured by the Chinese concept Ti Shi, which can be defined as the act of learning through bodily experience. Each of the selected artists creates works that make visible an emerging range of Chinese femininities and offer new models for the contemporary experience of Chinese women. Gesturing toward new possibilities, this show foregrounds contemporary Chinese women’s situations and articulates new gender identities informed by the rapid changes in China’s traditional values and social and economic structures.

*image (left)
Ladybird Theatre
Riding a Roller Coaster Flying into the Future , 2013
video still
courtesy of the artist