The thesis examines how identity in contemporary China is constructed through the influence of family structures, cultural traditions, and broader social expectations. My project analyzes the traditional Chinese art form of shadow puppetry to explore how individuals are shaped by these forces and how they might begin to understand and potentially transform the roles assigned to them. By combining shadow puppetry with audience interaction and installation-based exhibition design, the project creates a space where viewers can reflect on how identity is formed and how it might be redefined.
This project seeks to explore the following questions: How could art address the tension between what a person wants and what a person is expected to want? How could shadow puppetry reveal invisible systems of control and offer a sense of what it means to be both controlled and controlling? Furthermore, how can such an experience encourage viewers to reflect on who has the authority to define identity?
Drawing on traditional Peking Opera role types and shadow puppetry, this project deliberately adopts classical cultural forms not simply to reproduce them, but to mimic and subvert them. Through this strategy of mimicry, familiar visual and performative conventions are used to expose how identity is structured and normalized. At the same time, the work repositions these conventions as tools of critique, transforming them into a subversive language that questions the authority behind cultural scripts.The project incorporates my lived experience, traditional Chinese narratives, feminist theory, and artistic experimentation. The puppets are based upon four traditional Peking Opera characters: the Qingyi, Huadan, Laodan, and Chou, each representing different social identities and expectations that viewers may recognize in everyday life. The installation allows the viewer to first observe a story and then to interact directly with the puppets in order to control them. The viewer thus transforms from a passive observer to an active participant in the action and demonstrates how the identity of the character can be acted upon and changed in an active way.
Through the application of shadow puppetry in a contemporary environment, the project ensures the preservation of traditional culture while employing it to address the issue of identity in current societal settings. The project demonstrates how people are shaped and defined by their culture but how they too can redefine their own story. The project intends to inspire people, in particular female and marginalized communities, to claim their voice and redefine who they are through their identity.