Integrating Traditional Chinese Needlework Imagery and Techniques into Contemporary Textile Art Practice

摘要

My thesis project represents my personal critical exploration, as a Chinese woman, in search of my cultural identity through my contemporary textile art practice. My thesis work attempts to integrate imagery and techniques from traditional Chinese needlework into my art practice in Toronto through deconstruction and reconstruction to create textile artwork that reflects my cultural identity and brings about a fusion of the East and the West. At the same time, I feel troubled by the absence of traditional Chinese artistic expressions in garments mass-produced in China due to alienation of workers in the industrialized production process. Using sewing, patchwork and embroidery techniques with pieces from discarded mass-produced garments and my textile artwork, I created new garments. I intend them to be my critical response to the situation of worker alienation, hoping to prompt the audience to reconsider their conceptualization of ‘Made in China’