On the rural fringes of Northeast China, women are reclaiming their herstory. Documented during the 2026 Lunar New Year in Jilin Province, this reportage delves into the “unspoken epic” of women shaped by systemic poverty, domestic violence, and socio-political change.
My mother was born in Datong, a rural village in Taonan, Jilin. Driven by a tenacity for learning, she became one of the few university graduates of her era to escape the land, eventually settling in the provincial capital, Changchun, where I was born. Growing up, a thin veil always seemed to separate me from this desolate landscape. Only as my senses sharpened over time was I able to truly see the faces and hear the whispers that the wind had almost silenced.
Spanning four generations—from my ninety-year-old grandmother to my young niece—this work captures the invisible traumas and hard-won dignity of the women on this land. For nearly a century, survival has been their recurring motif; for decades, they have mended their precarious lives, stitch by stitch.
Documenting these stories is more than a creative endeavor; it is a necessary act of historical reclamation. As these women find their voices, the textures of their existence—once relegated to the margins—are finally brought into the light.
Ultimately, I hope this work illuminates the lived realities of women in rural China—carving out a corner of the world for their hardships and resilience, their disenfranchisement and reclamation, their silence and outcry, and the endless cycle of splitting and suturing.
(Technical & Installation Note): This work is presented as a longitudinal photographic series. The dimensions specified in the form represent the individual print size per work. The complete installation consists of multiple images with mixed horizontal and vertical orientations, intended to be curated as a flexible, modular visual archival wall.
View the complete 17-image series and oral history portfolio at: https://kossychen.cargo.site/splits-and-sutures
