Project名:Missing Links
case: Nushu {女書}
title: Semiotic Space -A case for an Endangered Language-
スワロフスキー・インスタレーション at 上海M50
dimention: 5m x 5m x 3.8 m

This work is homage to Nushu for its extraordinary achievement driven purely by women's desire to communicate.

Yuca Ishizuka 2004

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Among the thousands of endangered languages with a fate of extinction over the next 50 years, there was a mysterious script called 'Nushu'(女書) .

Being deprived of education, fettered by brutal marriages and foot bindings, women's life in feudal China was severe.
In those repressive conditions women in Hunan Province miraculously developed their own script, Nushu, literally, "woman's writing".
This unique system of writing gave them a method of self-expression and means to communicate with others of their sorority.

Its exact origin is still unknown.
Being disregarded by men, Nushu was virtually a secret script for centuries till 1983 when the script came to the attention of Chinese scholars.

This beautiful script was doomed to disappear.

Many manuscripts were destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, partly because of suspicion the script was a spy code and partly because it was regarded as a reflection of Chinese feudalism.

After the liberation in 1949, with the spread of Hanzi education, ironically Nushu fell into disuse.

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Eastlink Gallery, Shanghai September 2004
500 strands hung from the high ceiling...
with more than 30,000 Swarovski crystal beads.
Every strand is uniquely threaded...
embodying Nushu's writing system.
Hanging strands diminish in density...
in a spatial analogue of Nushu's fading out to extinction.
In a breath of wind...
countless strands undulate with the luminous whisper.
Evanescent crystals contrast with the postmodern cityscape...
suggesting Nushu's vanishing into the ever-waxing energy of Shanghai.
A narrow passage leads visitors ...
into a luminous forest of semiosis.
As Nushu was co-developed with women's craft work,
these beads were chosen to encode this gendered space.
When natural light penetrates...
crystals emit an emortional glow.
As Nushu vanished...
only a woman was left with the genuin knowlege of this script.

During this art project,Yang Huanyi, the last transmitter of Nushu quietly passed away on September 20, 2004.

-----Special thanks to:
Prof.Orie Endo（遠藤織枝先生）, Robin Lu, Jo Lusby and Burritt Sabin.