BOUND
This project documents and celebrates the lives of the last remaining women in China with bound feet. In the past year alone, three of the women I have been documenting have died and I feel it is now imperative to focus on recording their lives before it is too late. I have been working on this personal project for 13 years, financing the project myself and through the sale of my photographs. Although considered fairly barbaric, it was a tradition that enabled women to find a suitable partner. Match-makers or mother-in-laws required their son's betrothed to have bound feet as a sign that she would be a good wife (she would be subservient and without complaint). A tradition that started in the Song Dynasty, it was originally banned in 1911. It continued in rural areas until around 1949, with the start of the Cultural Revolution, whereupon women with bound feet had the bindings forcibly removed by government decree. The women in this project are now in their 80s, 90s and a couple over 100. In every culture there are forms of body modification that adhere to that cultures' perception of beauty. From Botox, FGM, breast augmentation, scarring and tattooing, to rib removals, toe tucks and labrets. I believe that this project is of international importance to be included in museums and anthropological studies into traditions and cultures. Your contribution will enable a visual and written history of these incredible women who have lived through famine, the cultural revolution (where people were penalised for the four olds: old habits, manners, custom, and culture) and family deconstruction / migration of the twentieth century. All of the women that I have included in this project to-date are peasant farmers working off the land in rural areas away from the City life depicted so often in academia on foot binding. There’s was not the life of beautifully embroidered shoes and luxury lifestyle The aim is to capture and celebrate a piece of history that is currently rarely shown and will soon be lost forever. These are some of the most incredible human beings I have ever met, they would melt your heart, as they have mine.