Between personal and political: material substances, transactions, actions, and movements by Jing Liang

Between personal and political pays homage to working women in a collection of experimental ceramic works navigating physical labour, feminism and family history.

Person creating art on the floor Image credit: Jing Liang with Follow, 2023 (foreground) and Archive, 2023 (background). Photo by Yiming Wang.

Inspired by the women in her family, particularly her grandmother who worked as a corn farmer, Jing Liang unpacks gender inequalities within her community, considering imbalances in domestic and social spaces through materiality.  

Liang draws on Chinese philosophy, patriarchal structures and art academia to connect the materials she uses to her gender identity and family histories. Using contemporary studio techniques to build textured and fragile sculptural forms, she continuously reconsiders how materials can assume new meanings through tactile artmaking. 

Artist bio

Jing Liang is an emerging artist currently studying her Master of Fine Arts (research) at RMIT University. Informed by ceramic processes, Jing's practice is experimental in its exploration of materials and body movements to unpack gender and cultural politics. Jing considers her bodily rhythms and the hierarchy between artist and material when working with ceramics, considering new materialist ideas to engage in this feminist critique of patriarchal social structures. In her current research practice, Jing is experimenting with porcelain and construction materials such as concrete to explore women's labour, both inside and outside of the home.  

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business.