When we discuss female art, the focus often centers on gender politics such as the female body, female identity, and the emphasis and attention on female perspectives and ways. This paradigm essentially constitutes a major outline and pattern of Chinese female art since the 1980s. This theoretical orientation has spawned a group of outstanding female artists in China. They derive creative materials and inspiration from the life experiences of female roles under social norms and differentiate themselves from the habitual patterns of male-dominated artistic visual discourse. Emphasizing gender differences in artistic expression undeniably presents the part of female perception and visual experience that has been obscured by society, gaining special attention in artistic writing and becoming an indispensable part of artistic development. However, from another perspective, such an approach hinders female artists from entering the real writing of art history and becomes an exception in artistic development. The paradigm of female art becomes a self-limitation, forming a special field alone and isolating itself from art history at the same time.
Therefore, how to break the dualistic thinking mode becomes an important way to expand the connotation and extension of female art. I think this is also the essence of postmodernist thought. When discussing female issues, we cannot neglect biological gender, but it is social gender that is decisive, shaping the standards for men and women, dividing the similarities between men and women, and erecting stereotypes of gender. For example, men belong to society, while women belong to the family. Therefore, it becomes logical and reasonable that we see men in the art world focusing on social issues, while women focus on trivial matters around them. Few people clearly recognize that such a phenomenon hides a huge gender segregation that both limits men and constrains women. This tendency in the art field often leads to male and female artists speaking for themselves, unable to understand each other and reach a consensus.
So, allowing women to step out of their homes and gain a social perspective, and allowing men to step into families and experience the details of life, has become a common characteristic of societies with a higher level of civilization. Female artists participate in the entire process of social development, from politics and economics to culture and art, so that they can have the possibility of gender equality dialogue.
From recent female artistic creations, we can also sense that a new atmosphere is forming: that more and more female artists are participating in the current sociopolitical dimension of China and beginning to think and create. Yan Yinhong's performance work "One Person's Battlefield" metaphorically represents the suppression of women in a power society through nearly manic dancing and finally reveals the image of a police officer hidden in the lower body in an inverted position. This is a typical work that criticizes social ecology through the body and is also stamped with feminist characteristics.
When people look back on this period of Chinese history years later, it will be exceptionally dark and cruel. It is destructive, devastating the environment upon which people depend for survival. Underground mineral deposits have been excavated, trees have been cut down and are scarce, the soil has been severely poisoned by chemical fertilizers and pesticides and is difficult to repair, rivers and lakes have been polluted and there is no clean water, the air is heavily polluted and smog invades repeatedly, making it impossible for people to breathe. Under the expansion of power and capital, nature has become the most heavily exploited and plundered object. Nature is silent and unable to speak or resist. In China, as an agrarian society, people are full of awe for nature. In Taoist philosophy, it is emphasized that Tao follows nature and that heaven and humanity are integrated. However, in the current dualism, nature exists as the opposite of humanity. Nature is an object to be utilized, transformed, and conquered. Nature has become an enslaved and wantonly trampled entity, and modern means further accelerate the persecution of nature. She is almost emptied and receives no compensation.
In the art exhibition "Suffocation, Not Just Smog" curated by Ailei in December 2015, there emerged some new trends in female art, revealing the characteristics of ecofeminist art. Ailei created a series of photographic works titled "Suffocation." In the photos, her face is covered with black particles, which are the visible substances of smog and also symbols of social and spiritual smog. This work is first and foremost about natural ecology, but it also relates to social and spiritual ecology. Due to the involvement of the female body, it simultaneously adds a female dimension—she is a person and also a woman, buried and concealed. It is like the truth being covered up and a woman's fate being buried.
Qiu Min's performance "Air Insurance" features two girls facing each other with their faces covered by masks and being wrapped in layers of plastic wrap until they can't breathe. Finally, they use scissors and roses in their hands to tear through the thick plastic wrap and struggle to get out. This work concerns the existence of human beings in air pollution and also relates to the survival experience of women.
In Wu Di's photographic work, a pregnant woman wears a gas mask and gazes ahead. Although this image was created by a male artist, it does not carry a male gaze of female objectification but instead directs people's attention to the care for life itself.
These works are artistic expressions about ecology and also possess a feminist perspective. Although they are not from a female gender perspective and are not limited to female identity, they express their own situations through empathy with nature. In some ways, feminism is ecofeminism. Ecofeminism opposes anthropocentrism, which is in line with feminism's opposition to androcentrism. In a broader sense, feminism opposes all forms of centrism, opposes patriarchy, opposes centralization and hegemony, opposes power discourse, and seeks equality—including the equality between humans and nature.
Ecofeminist art has a present-day relevance in China. It is not transplanted from nothing but arises from specific living situations in China and emerges from feminist art generated from real-life experiences.
Moreover, it is not only feminist art that requires the participation of women but also needs the involvement of men. In the face of a common survival crisis, artistic creation breaks gender boundaries.
In the current specific context of China, natural ecology has a symbolic nature. It is a representation of Chinese social ecology and also a representation of the spiritual ecology of contemporary Chinese people. In this sense, ecofeminist art possesses multiple layers of critique based on the current situation in China.