LIN TIANMIAO:

Hello there! I am artist Lin Tianmiao, currently living and working in Beijing.

PRESENTER:

When we spoke with Lin Tianmiao, she walked us through ‘Braiding’, this impressive piece of installation art now on display at M+. Cotton threads, like those trailing from the back of the imposing self-portrait canvas, often play an important role in Lin Tianmiao’s wider work, and we asked her why that was.

LIN TIANMIAO:

In the 1960s and 1970s, general supplies in mainland China were very scarce. Almost all clothes, quilts, and even shoes required the mistress of the family to be self-sufficient. When I was very young, I had to help my mother arrange these cotton and woollen threads to ease the heavy burden of housework. Therefore, I find cotton and wool materials which haven’t been bleached and dyed very comforting. Cotton is a natural thing, so there’s no strangeness to using it at all. Over the years of using it in my works, I gradually discovered that the possibilities for cotton thread are endless.

PRESENTER:

The other key element of this artwork–the giant self-portrait–is another motif which recurs throughout Lin Tianmiao’s work. She has long been interested in portraits, ranging from Mao’s portrait–which surrounded her as a child–to more modern portrait photography. These are often works which show the politics and social ideology of sitter; Lin Tianmiao, however, seeks to strip all of that away.

LIN TIANMIAO:

Thanks to my reflections on the history of ‘the portrait’, inspiration for how to use and present my own ‘portrait’ have fed into my artistic creation. The feeling of using my own body began to feel more appropriate. I obscured all the symbols of ‘gender’ characteristics, to the point where this gender is difficult to identify. I also tried to eliminate particular attributes such as class, occupation, that various societies and cultures, have given to individuals. Instead, I only retain the ‘natural’ that’s common to all humans.

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