| British artist Helen Marshall’s work finds its roots in both photography and collaboration. Her interventions challenge and provoke the inadequacies of conventional social documentary, often empowering the subject in the construction of meaning. She has curated a number of projects in London and in Beijing that have showcased British and International artists. Secret Gardens is a series of photographs made during 2006 and 2007 as a result of an unexpected collaboration with Lu Feifei, an artist and writer living and working in Beijing. They met in London spontaneously through friends on Lu Feifei’s first trip outside China and afterwards spent three months living and working together. The resulting work is a series of photographs that re-enact and interrogate the traditional representation of female sexuality. |  |
Zhang Zhaohui is an art critic and curator based in Beijing.
Helen Marshall and Lu Feifei, No.1 Pieta. Courtesy of the artists.
British artist Helen Marshall’s work finds its roots in both photography and collaboration. Her interventions challenge and provoke the inadequacies of conventional social documentary, often empowering the subject in the construction of meaning. She has curated a number of projects in London and in Beijing that have showcased British and International artists.
Secret Gardens is a series of photographs made during 2006 and 2007 as a result of an unexpected collaboration with Lu Feifei, an artist and writer living and working in Beijing. They met in London spontaneously through friends on Lu Feifei’s first trip outside China and afterwards spent three months living and working together. The resulting work is a series of photographs that re-enact and interrogate the traditional representation of female sexuality. The photographs are shot on location in London and Beijing and feature both the artists and other women who have volunteered to be in the project. The work was exhibited in July 2007 at Beijing Gao Brothers Contemporary Art Center; an art, located in Dashanzi Art District of Factory 798 in Chaoyang District. It manages an exhibition hall, a video art space and a studio complex. It’s objective lies in promoting Chinese contemporary and experimental art and encouraging international exchanges and collaborations in visual arts.
There was a question as to whether these works could be exhibited publicly in the 798 Art Zone. Lu Feifei and Helen Marshall, however, insisted on challenging a psychological bottom line that exists but is often difficult to express here. The bottom line of tolerance originates of course not only from official or semi-official powers that be, but also from the audience themselves. Though nudity and sex are becoming quite common in today’s Chinese cyberspace and in a social environment where basic human rights are hard to protect, it is still dangerous to present female nudity so directly via works of art, without any demonstrative reference or obscuration of the intimate parts. In China there are very few female artists; the famous ones must belong to a “women’s art movement” as opposed to being received in their own right. This is one of the concepts stated by the 19th century French philosopher Taine. In today’s global era linked by the Internet and international flights, the global tendencies of tolerance often obscure the actual local culture. These two artists, one from London and one from Beijing, have a strong identification with feminism. Their close and personal cooperation made this exhibition come about despite their cultural differences. Although more and more international artists are showing in Beijing’s art scene, collaborative works between Chinese and overseas artists seem infrequent; Helen Marshall and Lu Feifei are therefore, in a sense, forerunners.
