She Works For Her Family

This project investigates the structural gendered asymmetry of household labor within the Chinese sociocultural context. Domestic work is frequently naturalized as a feminine responsibility, leading to its persistent devaluation and the uncritical defaulting of such labor to women. Drawing on personal observation and qualitative accounts, the project highlights how these informal, non-negotiated allocations reproduce unequal bodily and relational burdens across generations.

Through a series of metal domestic accessories—such as aprons, headbands, and bracelets—the work materializes the often-invisible weight of domestic labor. The rigidity and coldness of metal stand in deliberate contrast to the presumed softness of domestic tasks, transforming familiar objects into artifacts situated between adornment and constraint. These objects serve as a critical material metaphor, rendering visible the embodied impact of domestic labor and the gendered power structures that sustain its normalization.