On June 24, 2022, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion was not a constitutional right for women, it reignited the world's thinking about women's body autonomy. Women, the one that breed and destroy life, the boundaries of their behavior are once again constrained.
This exhibition does not intend to provide a reference answer directly to the issue of "abortion" (whether women have the legal right to use their bodies), on the contrary, it tries to present how women voice and use their bodies over a long period of time, the struggles and difficulties between them, and the impact they have suffered.
As early as more than 2,000 years ago, Bible, the basic text that established the basic values and legal spirit of Western society, noted one of the earliest social extreme cases in the "Book of Judges". In the patriarchal and patriarchal society, the concubine of an Israeli priest was raped and murdered, then her husband divided her body into 12 pieces and distributed it to the 12 tribes of Israel—in such an event, the female body is both gender, social, and even more political—and thus provoked the "sense of justice" of the 11 tribes, resulting in a massacre in which 11 tribes nearly wiped out one tribe.
The author at the time, ingeniously after the body was delivered to all parts of Israel, used imperative sentences to ask the recipients and readers, "Consider it”, “Take counsel" and,”Speak" up". And those who received it at the time, the chosen action was to collectively kill the tribe that allowed this to happen.
Today, although women's personal safety has gradually been carefully protected, for example, the "Stalking and Harassment Prevention Law" has been implemented in Taiwan, but have women achieved autonomy over their bodies? What happened in the United States tells us that how women treat their bodies, in addition to being unable to control their own (not considered to be able to make the best decisions for their own or others' lives), has also become a political tool and a social issue. Such a "comeback" is actually making everyone in the society "Consider it" again.
Building on such a social reality, this exhibition concerns and presents how women explore their own feelings and establish their own thinking in expressing themselves, finding themselves, and in the gap between relationships. To this end, the exhibition brings together female artists other than Taiwan, such as Patty Chang who grew up in the United States, Pixy Liao who stayed in the United States to live and work after studying in the United States, and Zhu Tian who lived, studied, married and worked in London since middle school, and Ma Qiusha, who was born and raised in Beijing, uses her own body to express her own thinking from her growth experience and different stages.
Unlike the above-mentioned female agencies, some women use others to complete such expressions. In the female body of 9mouth’s series "Menstrual", different women ask the artist to photograph them in the location chosen by the women. In the process, men become tools and are used by women. Although the artist can publish these exploited results with his own name, these images are decided and agreed by women. The stereotypes of men and women are replaced and reversed in this relationship and process. It is the story behind the images.
Finally, this exhibition deliberately vacates the position of Taiwanese artists, in order to show that the situation of women expressing themselves through their bodies is still in the process, and this may be the most mainstream and direct method, but also invite women in Taiwan or those who have Gender-conscious to consider it, take counsel, and speak up about their feelings and their feelings.
Curator: Pinyu Liu Artists: Ma Qiusha, Zhu Tian, Patty Chang, Pixy Liao, 9 Mouth