Author: Jin Tang

My recent installation continues my exploration of Chinese women’s marriage systems and their structural implications. The work is composed of red satin, lace, tulle, combs, and scissors, and invites the audience to participate through actions such as braiding, winding, and cutting. Through these bodily interactions, I hope participants can physically experience the restrictions imposed on women by marriage and social structures, and reflect on the tension between constraint and liberation.

The inspiration for this installation comes from a unique group of women in modern Chinese history—the self-combing women (zishunü). They were most active from the late Qing dynasty to the first half of the twentieth century, especially in the Pearl River Delta region of Guangdong, such as Shunde, Nanhai, Panyu, and Jiangmen, where the silk-reeling industry flourished. At that time, textile production required a large female workforce, enabling many women to achieve economic independence through their labor rather than relying entirely on family or marriage.

The name “self-combing women” derives from the coming-of-age ritual in which they would comb their own hair into a bun, symbolizing adulthood and solemnly declaring a lifelong decision not to marry. This choice was both an act of resistance against patriarchal marriage structures and a survival strategy within specific economic conditions. Many of them lived together in small communities, supporting and caring for one another into old age. Yet their lifestyle was often stigmatized, branded as “unfilial” or “deviant” under prevailing social norms.

In my installation, I deliberately incorporate elements such as hair, binding fabrics, and red threads to extend these historical metaphors into a contemporary context:

• Hair serves as a marker of female identity and the body.
• Binding fabrics—red satin, ribbons, and lace—symbolize the constraints of social and marital systems.
• Red threads function both as metaphors of emotion and destiny, and as tangible forms of entanglement and rupture through the audience’s participation in braiding, winding, and cutting.

Between history and the present, I hope this work becomes a metaphorical space: one that carries the solitary courage of the self-combing women while also reflecting the dilemmas and negotiations that contemporary women continue to face.

As my project has developed, the installation itself has undergone constant change. At first, I was mainly concerned with how materials could embody metaphors of marriage. But once more participants engaged with it, I realised that actions—what people actually did with the installation—became the true core of the work.

Instead of simply observing, participants engaged physically with the installation. Through gestures like braiding, cutting, and wrapping, they gave the work new layers of meaning.

• Braiding: Some participants chose to braid hair or threads together. They described it as a reflection of how marriage ties two people together. The gesture carried tenderness, but also suggested a sense of binding.
• Cutting: Others decided to cut. Their movements were decisive, almost liberating. Cutting was often described as a release, as if they were severing invisible pressures.
• Wrapping: Some participants kept wrapping threads or strands around objects. This repetitive motion created a feeling of entanglement, evoking cycles of confinement within family or marital structures.

None of these gestures were imposed by me—they emerged spontaneously as participants responded to the installation. This spontaneity transformed the installation from a static object into a relational space, where meaning was produced through action.

I began to see that the installation’s value does not lie in how many metaphors I design in advance, but in how participants embody their own experiences and social imaginaries through movement. Their actions became a form of body language, materialising the pressures, contradictions, and desires surrounding marriage.

At the beginning of my project, I intended to focus exclusively on Chinese women’s marital choices and the social and familial pressures surrounding them. My research question was rooted in the Chinese context, and I wanted my interventions to reflect the specificity of this cultural experience.

However, when I began creating the installation in the UK, I noticed something unexpected: many women from other countries expressed strong interest in participating. They wanted to try the tools, interact with the materials, and share their own reflections. Their enthusiasm made me realise that, while my project originates from a Chinese context, the themes of marriage, gender roles, and family pressure also resonate across cultures.

Allowing international participants to join brought new dimensions to my research:

• On the one hand, their responses highlighted the uniqueness of the Chinese context, because they often reacted with surprise or curiosity at certain traditions or pressures.
• On the other hand, their experiences revealed universal resonances, such as the tension between freedom and obligation, or the ambivalence of intimacy and constraint.

This shift has made my project richer. I still consider Chinese women’s experiences as the core focus, but the cross-cultural engagement provides valuable contrasts. It helps me see which parts of the marital system are culturally specific, and which struggles are shared by women globally.

For me, the most exciting aspect is that the installation becomes a shared reflective space, not only for Chinese women to reconsider their own choices, but also for international participants to step into the perspective of Chinese women and empathise with their situation. In this way, the project generates both cultural specificity and cross-cultural dialogue.

（Feedback from international participants）

In my recent installation intervention, the feedback from two participants offered powerful insights into how bodily gestures can embody the tensions within marriage.

Participant One

She chose to cut the hair. For her, this action created a sense of release. She explained: “When I cut the hair, it felt like I was cutting away some kind of pressure.”

This response reminded me of the contradictions many women face within family and marital expectations: they are often required to conform, yet they long for liberation. Cutting, usually a simple everyday act, became in this context a symbolic gesture of resistance and separation.

Participant Two

She chose to braid the hair. While braiding, she reflected: “It reminded me of how marriage ties people together.” Her tone carried both tenderness and resignation. For her, the braid symbolised connection but also constraint.

This reaction highlighted the duality of marriage as a structure: it can represent companionship and intimacy, but it can also imply restriction and sacrifice.

---

My Reflection

These two gestures—cutting and braiding—created a striking contrast:

• One expressed escape through release;
• The other embodied attachment through binding.

Together, they illustrated two extreme imaginaries of marriage: departure versus dependence. This helped me to see that the installation is not only a visual form, but a catalyst for participants to translate personal experiences into broader social metaphors.

For me, the most important discovery is that the meaning of the installation does not lie in what I predetermine, but in how participants invest their actions with personal and social significance. This openness is what gives the research its vitality.

---

Methodological Note: Why Gestures Matter

Using gestures such as cutting and braiding as part of the installation is not incidental. These acts are embodied metaphors: they materialise abstract ideas of connection, pressure, release, and confinement. In feminist and participatory art practices, bodily gestures often serve as a way to connect the intimate with the structural.

By allowing participants to enact these gestures themselves, the installation turns them into co-creators of meaning. Their physical actions become a form of visual analysis in motion, where art is not only observed but also performed.

“How can interactive installations provide Chinese women with a reflective space to reconsider marital choices shaped by family and social expectations?”

When I first started Unit 3, my research question was:
“How can process of images/arts analysis shape Chinese women’s decision-making and social and familial expectations in marital choices?”
At that stage, my thinking was largely influenced by sociological and feminist readings. I wanted to uncover how marriage decisions for Chinese women are framed by structures of family and society, and I believed that image-based analysis could be a method to make those pressures visible. However, the wording of this question was quite broad and leaned more towards sociology. The role of visual analysis and artistic practice remained underdeveloped, which also appeared in the feedback I received.
Through feedback from tutors and peers, I realised that my project needed a sharper alignment between research question and methodology. Instead of asking how “images” in general might influence decision-making, I was actually working through interactive, participatory interventions. My staged experiments—from historical images to everyday scenes, and finally to installation—revealed that installation art was becoming my main research tool.
This led me to reframe my question, moving from a sociological framing toward an arts-based one. After several iterations, discussions, and reflections on what my interventions really do, the refined question became:
“How can interactive installations provide Chinese women with a reflective space to reconsider marital choices shaped by family and social expectations?”
This version is more specific in three ways:
Method clarity: It directly points to interactive installations as my artistic method.
Focus: It retains Chinese women’s marital choices as the research context.
Outcome: It emphasises reflection rather than direct “decision-making,” which is more realistic for the scope of my project.
While my current participants are international (since I am conducting the work in the UK), I have decided not to dilute the research focus by rewriting the question around “global marriage choices.” Instead, I will treat the international engagement as a cross-cultural lens—their responses may highlight both the specificity and the universality of Chinese women’s experiences. This will enrich the findings, but the research question itself remains grounded in the Chinese context.
Looking back, the process of iterating my research question mirrors the shift in my practice: from broad sociological ambition, to a more precise articulation of how art—especially installation—can intervene in social reflection. This alignment between what I ask and what I do feels like an important step in refining both my research and my practice.

This installation explores the entanglement of women’s bodies, marriage, and social expectations in the Chinese context. Hair, a material intimately tied to identity and history, recalls the tradition of the zishu nü (self-combing women) in southern China—women who resisted marriage and pledged independence through the act of combing their own hair. Here, the hair is braided, knotted, and suspended, suggesting both autonomy and control.

Red ropes dominate the atmosphere, referencing the cultural symbolism of red in Chinese marriage—tradition, celebration, and fate—while also transforming into a net of social pressure and entrapment. Heavy iron chains contrast with the softness of hair and the translucency of black tulle on the ground, evoking the weight of patriarchal structures against the silenced yet flowing presence of women’s voices.

The interplay of black and red defines the visual tone of the work: black as the shadowed background of suppression, red as the inescapable cultural marker of marriage. By entering this space of tension and restraint, viewers are invited to reflect on how marital choices are shaped by tradition, family, and societal structures, and to reconsider the possibility of self-definition within and beyond these systems.

In testing the new installation, I designed an intervention process centered on interaction. The logic unfolds as follows:

Step 1: Conversation Introduction
I begin with a short conversation with the participants, guiding them to reflect on the relationship between hair, the body, and marriage. Hair is both part of the body and a cultural symbol often associated with femininity, beauty, and discipline. This topic helps participants quickly enter the context explored by the installation.

Step 2: First Reaction
Before any interaction, I invite participants to simply look at the installation and share their immediate, instinctive reactions. This step allows me to capture their spontaneous impressions without external influence.

Step 3: Free Action
Next, I provide a set of tools—including scissors, combs, hair ties, and red strings—and tell them they may choose and use them freely. Whether they comb, braid, cut, tie, or entangle, each action is regarded as both a re-creation of the installation and a bodily response to the metaphor of marriage.

Step 4: Second Reflection
After the interaction, I ask participants again:

• “Why did you choose this action just now?”
• “Did this experience remind you of marriage or family?”
• “Compared to your first reaction, has anything changed?”

Through this sequence of seeing → acting → reflecting, I aim to observe whether participants undergo an emotional or cognitive shift in their engagement with the installation.

In my previous intervention, I created an installation using yellow silk and thread to evoke entanglement, intimacy, and control. The work generated responses such as “wedding dress,” “shackle,” “control,” “connection,” and “line.” These words revealed how participants connected the material and spatial experience with themes of marriage and power. Yet, the feedback also made me realize: the piece remained too metaphorical, more atmospheric than tangible.

Moving Toward Tangibility

For the next iteration, I decided to carry these keywords forward and make them visible in a more concrete form. Hair became the central material: a bodily extension that carries cultural weight, often linked to femininity, beauty, but also discipline and restraint. Red ropes and chains materialize shackle and connection, extending the visual tension.

On the ground, I added layers of black tulle—a deliberate reference to the wedding dress. Unlike the traditional white gown symbolizing purity and idealized love, this black fabric speaks of shadow, suppression, and the weight beneath the ceremony. It becomes a counter-image: the hidden underside of marriage that is often unspoken.

The Design Process

I experimented with different ways of attaching and layering hair onto black fabric, arranging it so the strands cascade downward like a suspended dress—yet one that appears bound, stretched, and fragmented. The process itself felt like stitching together fragments of memory, desire, and constraint.

Reflection

This version of the installation moves closer to the tangible: viewers can immediately read the imagery of a wedding dress, while also sensing its distortion. The chains, ropes, and black fabric invite associations of entrapment and control, contrasting with the softness of the hair.

By allowing audiences to physically interact—touching, pulling, or even cutting the threads—I aim to explore how marriage can be experienced as both connection and confinement. This iterative process not only refines the visual form, but also deepens the conversation between material, metaphor, and social critique.

In the previous interventions, I mainly focused on Groups A and B. However, in my research design, I also included a transgender participant (Group C). She did not directly take part in the image- or installation-based interventions, but instead shared her perspective on marriage through an in-depth interview.

Participant background:

• Logan (27, living in Shanghai, designer at a beauty company)
• Assigned male at birth but expresses herself in daily life as female.

Interview feedback:
Logan explained that, for her, marriage often implies the possibility of a lavender marriage. Such an arrangement can temporarily ease family and social pressures—allowing parents to “save face” and reducing external questioning. Yet, she emphasized that it is ultimately a compromise, one that denies her true identity and emotional needs.

She said: “Lavender marriage is a practical choice, but personally I resist it. It may bring temporary stability, but I don’t want to give up the possibility of marrying as my authentic self.” Logan hopes that in the future she can enter marriage openly as who she truly is, rather than relying on compromise for superficial peace.

My reflection:
Logan’s interview made me realize that the institution of marriage is not only about men and women—it is also a test of gender norms and identity recognition. Compared with Groups A and B, Logan’s situation highlights more sharply the exclusivity and inequality embedded in the marriage system.

Her account enriched my research by showing that marriage is not a “universally valid” social arrangement; rather, it excludes and constrains certain groups. The experiences of transgender individuals remind me that marriage is not only a negotiation between the individual and the family, but also a reflection of how society accommodates—or rejects—diverse gender identities.