Ma Qiusha

Wonderland-Eros No. 3

This work is part of Ma Qiusha’s ongoing series (2014-) featuring smashed cement slabs enclosed in nylon stockings, a series that intertwines personal and collective memory. Ma’s inspiration stems from a vivid childhood recollection of her mother’s stockings as she embarked on her way to school. These thick tan nylon stockings, prevalent from the 1970s through the 1990s, evoke not only her own mother but an entire generation of women. Ma collects decades-old stockings from friends, relatives, and acquaintances and uses this “second skin” to envelop fragments of broken concrete. These shards are then meticulously assembled into a vibrant stone mosaic or fabric tapestry. Ma uses clear nail polish to patch the snags and tears on the stockings—the precise way in which her mother used to fix her stockings in a time far before the ubiquity of overproduction.  In this specific piece, Ma employs black stockings, a color that only gained popularity in China over the past two decades. Previously associated mainly with sex workers during Ma’s childhood, black stockings later became fashionable in the early 2000s. This work, therefore, contrasts these two generations of women: the nude stockings represent Ma’s mother’s generation, while the sensual black stockings signify her own.

These two generations have existed against the backdrop of extensive urban development, embodied in the shattered cement slabs. These fragments are remnants of a mega-scale amusement park constructed extravagantly on the outskirts of Beijing during the economy booming in the 1990s in the country. Initially anticipated with great enthusiasm and self-proclaimed as the “world’s largest amusement park,” this project encountered significant delays and eventually faced demolition after languishing in abandonment for decades. These concrete remains serve as a metaphor not only for the fate of this colossal theme park but also for the broader issues confronting various urban infrastructures in similar circumstances.