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Exploring Female Roles Through a Contemporary Chinese Lens: the Artwork of Zhangping

Artist Talk with Zhangping, moderated by Lydia Chen, Associate Director of Fairbanks Center for Chinese Studies at Harvard | 6pm

Arriving from China, Beijing-based painter Zhangping will spend ten weeks on the BCA's campus exploring contemporary female roles. By interacting with the community and immersing herself into American culture, she will find inspiration for a new series of large-scale portraits of American women. She will interview up to ten women of various ages and backgrounds and experience who will become the models for her work.

This exploration stems from her current "Big Women" series, an examination of the conflict for the mdoern Chiense woman who is given new professional worksplace responsibilities but still must adhere to the conventional homemaker role. Visually, these subjects enjoy life and toast their new freedom, but are confined by the space of the traditional Chinese paper. Upon her return to China, her Boston-based work will be displayed alongside her Chinese "Big Women" to create a visual dialogue to reveal what unites and separates the feminine experience.

Lydia Chen holds her MA in Asian Studies and MJ in journalism from the University of California at Berkeley where she produced a short video documentary titled: Inner Visions: Avante-Garde Art in China. Raised in the United States, she has spent time in Beijing china since the 1980s. Ms. Chen joined Harvard in 2008.