XLKP

Media: Wool, aluminum plate, nail, stretchy fabric, plaster bandages, PVC tube

Dimensions: 150*100*130cm

Time: 2020


Xilankapu, or Tujia brocade, has more than 2000 years of history. It was now abandoned by most Tujia people because it requires much time and effort but brings little income. However, centuries ago, creating Xilankapu was what Tujia women spend most of their life doing. Just as the singing goes, “My darling is so deft at weaving Xilankapu, it is better than any other dowry,” Xilankapu was so vitally tied to the identities and bodies of Tujia women, becoming a symbol that visualizes their invisible labor.

In this work, I reconstructed the moment of Tujia woman creating Xilankapu. I learned about the Xilankapu machine by reading books and interviewing Tujia grannies. I used an aluminum plate and 12 PVC tubes to construct the structure, decorated with 20 nails and stretchy fabric. Basing off of a Xilankapu piece I bought from a Tujia granny, I enlarged the actual piece and weaved a giant Xilankapu with wool, which symbolically connects and weaves my body with those of Tujia women. I also made a plaster cast of my waist and placed it in front of the Xilankapu machine, where the unfinished threads hold it. In a quite literal manner, the laborious task of producing Xilankapu bounds Tujia women, and renders them only as an empty shell, as their labor is often ignored.