The clothes a person wears from day-to-day can be a reflection of that person’s experiences, status and life. Nancy Ma uses the form of the Duen Sam, a women’s upper garment from Qing Dynasty but still popular today, to speak about a women’s life under the influence of Chinese traditional culture, both past and present. Her artwork explores the dynamics of Chinese women’s identities, the social and family pressures put on women, and the impact of social changes that shape modern women today.
The exhibition of Women who speak comprises 3 series of Nancy’s work:
The artwork entitled Her Clothes, Her Life (2007), a series of four. It demonstrates her empathy with Chinese women who have been treated unequally in Chinese society. A range of Qing style women’s costumes was created to show how people’s everyday clothes denotes their membership in different social classes – the poor, the middleclass, the rich and royalty. The artwork embodies the notion that Chinese women were still treated unequally, no matter which social class they belong to.
The artwork entitled My Clothes, My Life (2009), incorporates the memories from the artist’s childhood, and the emotions associated with them. In the sixteen artworks, she reflects on the day-to-day life of women in her generation. Through the use of multimedia, such as clay, metal, worn garments, paper and video, the artist articulates a personal narrative of her childhood experiences, as a daughter in a traditional Chinese family. As a consequence of bringing past into present, a particular fragment of memory connects her with people, incidents or feelings in the particular times.
The collection titled Their Clothes, their Lives (2011-12), is a series of artworks expressing ideas of freedom that women enjoy due to social change, cultural integration and globalization. The artist puts the genre in context ironically, by addressing the new identity of Chinese women nowadays through her ceramics work.