#feministfriday episode 408 | Outsider
Good afternoon,
How would you feel about a super super niche Fem Fri? Good I hope, because that is what I have for you. A Fem Fri of Chinese woman outsider artists!
This is inspired by Zhemao, who wrote an imaginary history of Russia in Chinese Wikipedia. Millions of words. Millions. I don't know about you but I am profoundly moved that someone would create a detailed, internally consistent and totally imaginary world for no clear reason and with no obvious endgame. She uses the word "nebulous" in this quotation, which is a good word for half of this but doesn't even touch the scale of her, I want to call it, acheivement:
Using four puppet accounts, Zhemao—who wrote in an apology via her English Wikipedia account that she was a housewife with a high school degree—created one of the largest hoaxes in the history of Wikipedia, earning her the online nickname, “Chinese Borges.” She went on to write that
As the saying goes, in order to tell a lie, you must tell more lies. I was reluctant to delete the hundreds of thousands of words I wrote, but as a result, I wound up losing millions of words, and a circle of academic friends collapsed. The trouble I’ve caused is hard to make up for, so maybe a permanent ban is the only option. My current knowledge is not enough to make a living, so in the future I will learn a craft, work honestly, and not do nebulous things like this any more.
https://lithub.com/a-chinese-borges-wrote-millions-of-words-of-fake-russian-history-on-wikipedia-for-a-decade/
Now let's look at the visual arts and the works of Guo Fengyi. In case you are asking, was she inspired by visions, yes!!! She was totally inspired by visions:
She worked with Indian ink and brushes, producing works up to five metres long, drawn with no initial plan in mind, discovering her own creation as she worked. The multitude of delicate lines form ghostly figures, dragons, phoenixes, and faces, sometimes interwoven, smiling and serene or terrifying and monstrous.
https://www.outsiderartnow.com/guo-fengyi/
Finally, I can't find anything on the internet about Tao Zi except on China Daily to which I do not especially want to link. However, lookkkkkkkk at these mechanical rabbits:
A xx.