| I was born in a northern village in China in the 1970s. I spent my childhood in domestic violence. As I grew up, I was moving around, like a nomad. I never had a steady relationship. I suffered from illness, an abortion, unemployment, poverty, an unhappy marriage, childbirth, and betrayal. These experiences make up half of my life, half of a woman’s lifetime. When I look back, I realize that most Chinese women share my experiences, issues such as domestic violence, multiple abortions resulting from a lack of sex education, marriages without love, and failed extramarital affairs. In a way, I am an epitome of Chinese contemporary society. | 
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Li Xin-Mo
Li Xin-Mo, Death of Xinkai River, 2008. Photography. Courtesy of the artist.I was born in a northern village in China in the 1970s. I spent my childhood in domestic violence. As I grew up, I was moving around, like a nomad. I never had a steady relationship. I suffered from illness, an abortion, unemployment, poverty, an unhappy marriage, childbirth, and betrayal. These experiences make up half of my life, half of a woman’s lifetime. When I look back, I realize that most Chinese women share my experiences, issues such as domestic violence, multiple abortions resulting from a lack of sex education, marriages without love, and failed extramarital affairs. In a way, I am an epitome of Chinese contemporary society.
My works are all rooted in my personal experiences. Death, illness, and harm are the themes of my works. Captured by my lens are dying Chinese patients, wounded bodies, overdeveloped environment that has lost its natural charm, polluted rivers, and roadkill.
In my recent works, I pay more attention to issues that are affecting Chinese women. I try to deal with my own scars in my art, hoping to help all Chinese women cope with their own. I always play a dead character, trying to force indifferent Chinese people see and feel the death of a raped woman. Death of Xinkai River is a series of pictures, and a performance piece where I “killed” myself in Xinkai River, to complete a memorial, in memory of this polluted river and the death of a raped schoolgirl.
