UCLA

This thesis examines Chinese artist Lin Tianmiao’s (1961-) usage of white cotton thread in the multimedia installations The Proliferation of Threadwinding (1995), Bound and Unbound (1997), and Braiding (1998). A socially feminized material, thread and its centrality in Lin’s installations has engendered numerous interpretations circumscribed within problematic, essentializing lenses of feminism and dissidence. Conversely, this paper argues that Lin not only uses thread to meditate on the tangled relationship between labor and gender identity, but also to enunciate ambivalent feelings towards her own experiences of womanhood—experiences especially complex as they were molded by the discordant gender ideologies of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (1966-1976). Epitomizing contradictory meanings and histories, thread, an ambivalent material in its own right, complements Lin’s endeavor to visualize her attachments and repulsions toward being woman.