Graduation Term

2022

Degree Name

Master of Fine Arts (MFA)

Committee Chair

Tyler Lotz

Abstract

As a product of a Chinese immigrant family in North America, I was perpetually reminded to be practical about my future. But after over a decade as a health care professional, I began to feel dissatisfied with the direction of my life. I turned to creative outlets to find a voice and to explore my identity as a female of colour. To create work as an act of remembrance of the collective intersectional adversity minority women continue to face. I was drawn to glass because it is inherently paradoxical, constantly in a state of fragility and permanency. This mirrors the hegemonic constraints that still linger and influence the world. My work highlights the astute way in which our inherent patriarchal society has affected the Asian female position within its structure and how it maintains control through cultural and social expectations and normalized gender roles. My visual language contains artifacts of patriarchy from my childhood that have since become pop culture icons. The symbolism of these images is far removed from their original medium and their patriarchal foundation, making them easy to manipulate and go undetected while subtly reinforcing social norms and binary systems. Ultimately, I view my work as a nostalgic and whimsical, yet mischievous way of documenting where women, particularly immigrant women, are placed within a societally prescribed racial framework. I hope to initiate discourse about the continual existence of an inherent system of patriarchy and how the present continues to propagate the injustices of the past.

Access Type

Thesis-Open Access

DOI

https://doi.org/10.30707/ETD2022.20220705065052401962.999983

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