Another Woman No.2

Two women quietly embracing – the one with her back is Singaporean artist Amanda Heng, and the one facing the viewer is her mother. In their large Chinese household ruled according to Confucian patriarchal ethics, Heng says that her overworked mother always devoted herself to her husband and sons, which led to estrangement between mother and daughter. Now in her own middle age, Heng had a keen desire for reconnection with her mother, both as mother and daughter, and as two independent women. Heng chose to involve her mother in the creation of her art works, thinking that the process would become a form of communication between them. Heng shot photographs of them in a two-woman performance. The resulting images provide a condensed, vivid view of someone seeking for a connection with an other, going far beyond a simple mother-daughter portrait. (UM)