MIAO's blogI met an artist who is also working on the nushu genre, Jiayi, who wrote the word “women” on another woman, from one woman’s hand to another’s hand, echoing the connection between the most primitive women in Nüshu, and I also liked her infectious performance, and we were already discussing about the presentation in the final festival.
In the intervention held on October 13th, there were ten participants in total. We gathered in front of Central Saint Martins, and I prepared materials for crafts and some snacks for everyone.
First, I asked everyone to introduce themselves briefly, and then I briefly told the history and story of Nushu. A thousand years ago in China, when women were not allowed to be educated, a woman entered the palace and invented a script that was only passed down among women in order to communicate with her family and to keep it from being known by other people.
Then I took out a piece of white paper with the word “woman” written in Nushu, and I invited everyone to write down any feelings they had about the story, including women’s voice, spiritual leadership, strength, brave, independence, intelligence, creativity, etc…
In the second part I invited everyone to share about when they first learned about female empowerment and some examples from their lives. At first we were not familiar with each other, so I shared my own thoughts first, and during this conversation I realized that we were talking about a wider range of topics, and although it sounds a bit off-topic, I think it was the fact that we all felt safe in the women’s group and that’s why we were willing to share more, and I found that everyone was involved in the discussion.
For the last part of the session I invited them to make crafts and they could choose their own names in Nushu or favorite words and phrases. At first I wanted to add some kind of introduction to the session, e.g. what would you like to convey in Nushu? But it was clear from what they chose, for example, some wrote “Choice”, “Women can do anything”, “Joy”, “Destiny is in women”, “Freedom”.
Research question:
How can we keep Nushu alive among younger generations among Chinese women?
Nushu is a variety of language invented thousands of years ago by women who were not allowed to be educated in order to communicate with each other.
After interviewing and researching women from different fields and learning about the original Nushu, my project aims to use Nushu, a women only language as a tool to create a women’s space for contemporary Chinese women to communicate with each other and express their emotions.
This is not only physical, but also an invisible network connecting women in various fields. The social network built by women’s groups can enhance our voice in society, amplify small voices, and make more people aware of women’s rights.
Process and Evidence
<Primary Research>
Interviews
Evidence of ethical research
<Secondary Research>
Nushu Documentary and Nushu museum
https://23043098.myblog.arts.ac.uk/category/nushu/
Reading and thoughts
< Interventions and feedbacks >
Why Nüshu?
Because I believe that the story and spirit behind Nüshu are still relevant in modern society, and I have always had a strong interest in traditional cultural heritage, I hope that by raising people’s awareness of Nüshu, I can give new life to the ancient women’s script.
Female empowerment:
I believe that women’s empowerment should not just stay in words, but should actually contribute to women’s rights, so I reached out to people in different fields who work on women’s physical and mental health.(AC Realization)
Interventions：
What happen？
From my observation, when they doing the handicrafts, they were all put down their phones.
Why it happened?
Because when people do crafts, they need to be completely focused on it.
（AC Process）
Why handicraft？
Use a visual way instead of verbally to convey it to the audience, because in modern society, most people have the ability to read and write Chinese characters, which is also an easy way for people to engage in.
（AC Communication）
Material choosing:
Twisted sticks is quite popular among young generations of Chinese women. It’s cheap and easy to find, people always use it to make toys or any other handicraft works.
Why choosing this material?
Because I want to combine the ancient language with something new in the new era.