International Women's Day: Creative work by inspirational women

Playful, unconventional, experimental, pushing boundaries. These are some of the words used to describe the bold artworks of Singapore artist Jane Lee, whose paintings are in the SMU Art Collection.

Lee does not limit herself to the traditional processes and techniques of painting. Her play with the medium highlights its versatility. She uses her materials in inventive and innovative ways to create highly tactile surfaces. In the painting Embrace (2006), which is in the Collection, instead of applying paint with a brush or palette knife, she applies paint in crisscrossing strands as though weaving a textile piece with weft and warp threads.

She is also continuously exploring new possibilities in presenting paintings. So the paintings often escape the confines of the canvas to interact with the architectural space. One such monumental work is Raw Canvas (2008) at National Gallery Singapore. Here, she uses the same crisscrossing technique of applying paint as Embrace (2006).

View her paintings that are part of the SMU Art Collection here.

The Goddess Chronicle

Author: Natsuo Kirino

On a mysterious island, an Oracle serves the realm of light - guiding her people with a benevolent hand. Her sister - the protagonist, Namima - serves the realm of darkness. The realm of the dead.

Natsuo Kirino is known for her crime novels, but The Goddess Chronicle is a story of womanhood, sisterhood, love and betrayal, and ultimately - finding one’s path in life. The beginning of the novel takes place on a mysterious island shaped like a tear, and we get to see Namima’s youth being stolen away from her as she’s forced to live in darkness and isolation, surrounded by death while her sister lives in the light.

But afterwards, the story takes a turn - and we follow Namima to places unknown as she loses her love, leading to her eventual encounter with the famed creation goddess Izanami.

The Goddess Chronicle is called a ‘feminist re-telling of the story of Izanami and Izanagi’ by numerous media outlets. Indeed, the story of Izanami and Izanagi itself is a dark reflection of Eurydice and Orpheus. When Izanami died giving birth to the god of fire, Izanagi pursued her, but, like Orpheus, turned his head back as he was leading them out of the underworld. Izanami was a rotten corpse by then. Spurning her incurred her wrath, their resulting spat thus created the cycle of life and death.

Izanami, the darkness, death to Izanagi’s creation despite being a creator goddess. Namima, the oracle who serves the dark and tends to the dead. The irony of death and darkness reflected in a woman.

Years separate them. Godhood and experience, too. But one can see a certain empathy between the two, even past their similarities.

To quote the book, "It would not be an overstatement to say that the fate she suffered is the fate that all women of this land must bear."

For a bewitching novel that reflects on the nature of womanhood and suffering, The Goddess Chronicle is a must-read and is available digitally via SMU Libraries.

The Empress of Salt and Fortune

Author: Nghi Vo

Awards: Hugo Award, Best Novella (2021), Locus Award Nominee, Best Novella (2021), Goodreads Choice Award Nominee, Fantasy (2020), Ignyte Award Nominee, Best Novella (2021)

The young empress finds herself trapped in a loveless political marriage, surrounded by people she cannot trust, locked behind gilded bars. The premise of The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo, a novella set in Anh—a fictional empire much like imperial China—is not new to avid readers of historical fantasy. Its beautiful prose, intricately crafted setting, and celebration of women’s will to survive even in the face of adversity, however, are what make this novella stand out from the crowd.

In-yo, the royal daughter of a defeated North, is taken as spoils of the war and sent down to the victor empire Anh to be its new Empress. Entombed in a forced political marriage, In-yo has to work within the confines of the palace and its many occupants—few of whom have affection for the defeated “savage” Northerners—to find a way out.

In a time and place where women were bound by restrictive societal expectations, relegated to idle passtimes, and seen as the inferior sex, The Empress of Salt and Fortune demonstrates (with masterful writing and storytelling too!) that women have always pushed against the boundaries they find themselves in. The quote “angry mothers raise daughters fierce enough to fight wolves” aptly sums the novella up, illustrating the determination of the human spirit to resist capture and fight for a life worth living.

For a masterfully crafted, award-winning short story that shines a spotlight on imperialism and the patriarchy, look out for The Empress of Salt and Fortune on the Libraries' shelves in mid-March.

Blackbird

Directed by Amie Batalibasi

Set in the late 1800s, Blackbird follows the story of a pair of Solomon Isander siblings who were kipnapped and forced to work on a sugar cane plantation in Queensland. The short film shreds light on a little known part of the Austalia's sugar slaves.

Winner of Best drama - Short Film at the Sydney Indie Film Festival and Official Selection at the New Zealand International Film Festival.

Lady Bird

Directed by Greta Gerwig

Coming-of-age comedy-drama that focuses on the relationship between mother and daughter. 

Nominated for five Oscars, Golden Globe winner for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy and Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy & Film Independent Spirit Award winner for Best Screenplay.

The Door

Directed by Juanita Wilson

An Oscar-nominated short film where the seemingly absurd act of stealing a door opens the narrative to the tragedy of Chernobyl as seen through the eyes of one man. 

Nominated for Best Short Film, Live Action at the Academy Awards, Winner of Best Short at the Cork International Film Festival and Irish Film and Television Awards.