Women’s Script: Teardrops of the Stars
Yixuan Wu
Illustration (School of Graduate Studies)
About this Item
- Title
- Women’s Script: Teardrops of the Stars
- Contributor Names
-
Wu, Yixuan (Creator, Illustrator)
-
Leach, Brendan (Thesis advisor)
-
Dittrich, Dennis (Thesis advisor)
-
Miller, Anelle (Thesis advisor)
- Date
- 2024
- Summary/Artist's Statement
- Artist Statement:
- Yixuan Wu is a Chinese-born illustrator and artist based in New York City. Her work is influenced by historical legacies of decorative arts in both Asia and the Western world. Yixuan creates images that invoke a mysterious past from a modern perspective and female gaze.
- About this Work:
-
Women's Script (女书/Nüshu) is a Chinese syllabic script that was used exclusively among women. During the time period when they lacked the right to receive a standard education, women in Jiangyong County, southern China created this unique script and used it to express their emotions and record their private lives. They wrote down stories about the sadness and loneliness of the bitter side of their life, as well as the great power of friendship and sisterhood; since the shapes of the letters are slender and exquisite, they can also be embroidered on clothes or accessories as patterns.
To celebrate the life of these women and the legacy of this female-only language, I have developed my thesis based on those who created and used the secret language, as well as the local Yao culture(The Yao people are a minority in China, they have their unique costumes and lifestyles). The subheading, Teardrops Of The Stars, comes from an interview with Ms.Yanxin Ho, an old Jiangyong lady who grew up with the culture. According to her, these letters “were born from the sky, there’s no need to be afraid of it.”
The body of my thesis is a series of 10 illustrations depicting the lifetime of women in the secret community at the time(the name of each illustration can be found on the board next to the piece). The first five works are inspired by the living situation, religious beliefs, and cultural background of these women, as well as the unique origin form of this language; the following four images are focused on local ceremonies and customs, and the last one is a scene based on their traditional cremation.
For me, the story of Women’s Script is a story about women's bravery, creativity and rebellion against patriarchal society; through letters, poems, cutting papers and embroidered items, they successfully created a mental sanctuary, an independent space where women have the freedom to use their creativities and imaginations, “a room of one’s own”, as Virginia Woolf suggested. My goal is to bring awareness of their voice to more people, especially women from all backgrounds. - Medium
- Procreate
- Course/Degree Information
- Program/Degree: Illustration MFA
- Academic Semester: Spring 2024
- In Exhibition
-
Flood: Class of 2024 Visual Thesis Exhibition
- Rights
- In Copyright
- Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
- The copyright for this work is held by its author/creator(s). Usage of this material beyond what is permitted by copyright law must first be cleared with the rights-holder(s). This work has been made available online by the Fashion Institute of Technology Gladys Marcus Library strictly for research and educational purposes. If you are the copyright holder for this work and have any objections to this work being made available online, please notify us immediately at [email protected].
- Identifier
- FIT Repository ID: il_mfa_000007
Citation
Wu, Y. (2024). Women’s Script: Teardrops of the Stars. FIT Institutional Repository. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/398824
Wu, Yixuan. Women’s Script: Teardrops of the Stars. 2024. FIT Digital Repository, https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/398824
Wu, Yixuan. "Women’s Script: Teardrops of the Stars." FIT Digital Repository, 2024. https://institutionalrepository.fitnyc.edu/item/398824