XIAO CHEN

Xiao Chen (Michelle) is a student who majors in Studio Art at the University of Scarborough. She was born and raised in China and she studies in different countries after her primary school. She spent 3 years in Singapore finishing her secondary school study and then went to Boston for college. She enjoys creating artworks at her own interests but also artworks that reflect some possibly neglected issues, for example, she created her digital posters series which are about female production rights in China Authorized to Suppress (2020), Part of it (2020) and By Who (2020). Although not all her works relate to social issues, her newest work Process is about her personal experience.

Digital Drawing
Posters (210mm×297mm)
My series is related to exploring the reproductive rights of Chinese women. The series is composed of three images. The reason I want to make this series is that I read the news about single women are banned from freezing their eggs by law and men are allowed to store their sperms in China and there is a single woman Terasa Xu fighting for her rights to freeze her eggs. A woman can produce about 400 eggs in her lifetime, and the egg freezing is a medical method to preserve a woman's fertility then she can give birth at a later time but many experts in China are concerned that egg freezing for single women would trigger the egg sales among young single women. This restriction appears to discriminate against single women and suppress the reproductive rights of single women.
Looking back on the history of Chinese women’s reproductive rights, I found that whether married women were forced to put the intrauterine contraceptive device into their uterus for the implementation of the one-child policy in the past or the prohibition of single women from freezing eggs. Chinese women’s reproductive rights are neglected and controlled by authority. As a female from China, I feel the urge that we females should fight for gender equality and our own reproductive rights.

“Authorized to Suppress”

The “Authorized to Suppress” illustrates the fact that single women are banned from freezing their eggs by law and men are allowed to store their sperms in China and the restriction appears to discriminate against single women and suppress the reproductive rights of single women. The bloody uterine not only represents the women’s uterine but also represents the hurt on single women’s rights.

“Part of it”

This piece is about the IUD (Intrauterine Device) which is the most popular birth control method in China. Women would be forced to put IUD inside their body since every woman could only offspring one child because of the implementation of the famous “one-child” policy. Based on my research, many Chinese women would leave IUD inside their body after
the expiration date of the IUD and it would increase the difficulty of taking out the IUD so I make the IUD look like it grows inside in the uterine to create the tension of the image.

“By Who”

This piece is about the manipulation of women’s reproductive rights. Looking back on Chinese women’s reproductive rights, the choice seems not to be controlled by women themselves. The background is related to “hero mother”, the country needed a larger population, then every Chinese mother gave birth to four or more children would hereby be known as “hero mother”, after the baby boom, women were allowed only to offspring one
child because of the one-child policy. The figure is the combination of a woman and a uterine, and the woman's brain is controlled as well but not by her own will.