Jo Farrell
Jo Farrell, Potala Palace, Lhasa (Tibet, 1998)
BOUND
Feet Women of China
Jo Farrell, Zhang Yun Ying #2, 77 years old (China, 2005)
It is rare today that exhibitions can really teach us something new about how we behave as humans; BOUND by the award winning artist Jo Farrell does exactly that. Merging the educational, the anthropological, the taboo, the social and the artistic by showcasing for the very first time a focused body of research on the practice of foot binding in China. A passion project already well recognised having gone viral in 2014 in world media, Jo Farrell has devoted herself since 2005, to tracking down the last surviving Chinese women to have had their feet bound. Footbinding (also known as ‘lotus feet’) was the Chinese custom of applying painfully tight binding to the feet of young girls to prevent further growth, resulting in drastically altering the bone structure of the feet to reach a target petiteness.
The first encounter happened by chance. When the artist got chatting to a Shanghainese taxi driver about whether there were any women left with bound feet, he mentioned that his grandmother did. Farrell recalls; “I was surprised to hear. Most people told me it was a tradition from the past and that there were no women left with bound feet. I went to the village of the cab driver’s grandmother in the Shandong province, and met Zang Yun Ying. She became the first woman in my project.”
Taking the artist across China to numerous rural villages mostly situated in Yunnan and Shandong provinces, the artist found a further 50 women, some more than 100 years old to photograph and interview. Having revisited many of them year after year, she gained a unique insight and was able to follow their progress as they are becoming older. Farell developed friendships that go beyond language, culture, and age, purely based on mutual respect. Her up close portraits, photographs of their modified feet, alongside the women’s home surroundings have amounted to a comprehensive book entitled Living History: Bound Feet Women of China. Telling the stories of these women and their experience is at the heart of the project. Said to have become fashionable in the 10th century when the Emperor Li Yu became entranced by a courtesan dancing with small bound feet, other women of the court took to binding to gain favour. Originally banned in 1911 however it continued in rural areas until around 1949 when the women were forced to remove the bindings. Enforced by Chairman Mao, who ordered anti foot-binding inspectors to publicly shame any women they found, Farrell continues, “it was considered an old tradition that did not reflect modern China and should be stopped, their bindings would be hung in windows so that people would laugh at them.”
Jo Farrell uses her analogue Hasselblad camera and develops her own film. This form of photography requires an immediate editing process. The artist chooses to show her works with the original negative framing to show there is no cropping or post production involved in her photographs. This methodology defines Jo Farrell’s artistry as she seeks to document traditions that are disappearing; a cumbersome process in the age of digital photography and intense post production, however the most fitting way to capture the remaining Chinese women who can have ‘lotus feet.’
The portraits are humanising, demonstrating Farrell’s ability to work with her subjects and ultimately to be moved and changed by the process. She admits she was surprised by her own reaction to seeing the real bound feet. “The first time I met Zang Yun Ying and held her foot in my hand it was just incredible – so soft and so incredibly formed.” This is not about the “vision” of the artist, but instead a conversation and deep listening, making Farrell just as much an anthropologist as a photographer. Even her diary, that she kept daily during her visits, reveal her sense of compassion, for example to simply keep these women company who may be ignored or left to themselves in their old age, bringing them food or medicines to treat their ailments.
““Jo Farrell’s project is a perfect blend of powerful photography mixed with historical record. The classic documentary approach opens up the lives of the women whose feet were bound, bringing us their stories and offering a glimpse into a practice that stretches back through the centuries.””
““Jo Farrell has undertaken an important task, documenting the disappearing remnants of a thousand-year-old custom — Chinese women with bound feet. And she has done it so beautifully...””
Jo Farrell is a documentary photographer and cultural anthropologist capturing traditions and cultures before they are completely eradicated. Her work focuses on to what lengths women will go to be accepted in their own society—from Chinese footbinding to the Kayan women with brass coils round their necks. BOUND has been Farrell’s ongoing project for the last 13 years and during this time Farrell has met and photographed more than 50 women with bound feet in China.
Her book Living History: Bound Feet Women of China documents and celebrates the lives of the last remaining women in China with bound feet. Jo's project has been showcased on the BBC (Impact TV and news website), CNN (Kristie Lu Stout), The Smithsonian magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Huffington Post, The Guardian, SCMP, Time Out, Stern, Localiiz, HK Magazine, Vanity Fair, and many more. She is the recipient of many awards including a Jacob Riics, Center for Fine Art Photography, Women in Photography and Black & White Spider Awards.
““In spite of the brutality the project lays bare, its message is one of hope, survival and grit.””
Press on Jo Farrell's BOUND feet women of China
Apple Daily [China, 2014]
Arts Beijing [China, 2014]
Au Feminin [France, 2014]
BBC [UK, 2014]
Catraca Livre [Brazil, 2014]
China Daily [China, 2014]
CNN [USA, 2014]
Cosmopolitan PL [Poland, 2018]:
Daily Mail [UK, 2018]
ECNS [China, 2014]
Feature Shoot [2014]
Hong Kong Free Press [Hong Kong, 2018]:
Huffington Post [USA, 2017]
International Business Times [USA, 2014]
Localiiz [Hong Kong, 2018]
L’Express [France, 2014]
Madhyamam [India, 2018]
Metro [UK, 2014]
Modernism [Romania, 2014]
Publico [Spain, 2014]
RAI News [Italy, 2017]
Sarie [South Africa, 2014]
South China Morning Post [Hong Kong, 2018]
The Guardian [UK, 2015]
The Independent [UK, 2018]
The Wall Street Journal [USA, 2014]
The Washington Post [USA, 2014]
Vanity Fair [USA, 2014]
Jo Farrell - Documenting what may disappear forever
On Farrell's many adventures around the world she has built up a collection of stunning photographs that tell stories of places and people where change is imminent. From Cuba to Tibet, China, Myanmar and even inside the Forbidden City - her lens focuses and shares with us mystical worlds.
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