Documentation for “Girls’ Stories”
By Xiaoyi Cai (Mia) Date: 3/21/2022
- PROJECT NAME
Girls’ Stories
- CONCEPT
It is a work displaying the harm done to women in a seemingly flowery world, wishing the world to be more full of peace and equality, and fewer conflicts and harm.
And in my project, I chose four typical cases, including 丰县铁链女 Incident, Suyuan Incident, Saba Incident, and Nth Room Case.
*丰县铁链女/ Xuzhou chained woman Incident:
The Xuzhou chained woman incident (Chinese: 徐州铁链女事件), also known as the Xuzhou eight-child mother incident (Chinese: 徐州八孩母亲事件), is a case of human trafficking, severe mistreatment, and subsequent events that came to light in late January 2022 in Feng County, Xuzhou, Jiangsu, People’s Republic of China. The video of a mentally disturbed and imprisoned woman who was chained to a wall and who gave birth to eight children went viral on China’s internet and sparked a huge public outcry.
*Suyuan Case
Suyuan Case can be also known as the Cho Doo-soon case that is a rape case that occurred in December 2008 in the Republic of Korea in which the perpetrator, Cho Doo-soon, raped an 8-year-old child in a toilet with extreme brutality.
*Saba Incident
Saba Incident is a real story recorded by the documentary film “A Girl in the River”. Saba, a 19-year-old Pakistani girl, was shot and thrown into a river after being brutally executed by her biological father, Maqsood, and uncle, Muhammad, for wanting to marry the man she liked. She is lucky to climb to shore and receive medical attention to save her life.
*Nth Room Case
The “Nth Room” case is a criminal case involving blackmail, cybersex trafficking, and the spread of sexually exploitative videos against females via the Telegram app between 2018 and 2020 in South Korea. The number of confirmed victims is at least 103, including 26 minors.
- DESIGN
Basically, my project consists of two parts with a bigger wooden box outside and a smaller acrylic box inside along with four threading connecting the four small wood boards that are to cover the inside acrylic box.
There are four sets of photos showing the four tragic stories of girls attached to the four sides of the acrylic box. The scenes where the girls got hurt and the tools that harmed them are printed on the sulfuric acid paper attached to the outside face of the acrylic board. As for the inside face of the acrylic board, they are attached with the figure photos of the girl victims. If the audience pulls out the threads, the corresponding board will rise, and unveil the photo sets displaying the girls’ stories. I deliberately made the boards not rise particularly smoothly because I wanted to use them to convey that it was not easy to reveal these stories. Therefore, we have to pay more attention to the groups of women, preventing them from getting such harm. Furthermore, to make the effect of overlapping photos of the scenes, tools, and figures, I put a NeoPixel RGB LED inside the box, and made it into fading mode, which represents the desire to be noticed and the hope to be saved.
As for the captions, instead of putting them beside the artifact, I chose to connect them with the thread to pull out the small wooden board. Furthermore, captions are designed to be hidden in the folded paper where the outside faces are written the words “Save me!”, “Help me!”, “See me”, and “Do not ignore us!”.
Here are the details of captions (generally, they are the tragic experiences told in the first point of view):
*
Hi, I’m 小花梅.
I was trafficked to Xuzhou, forced to give birth to eight children, and was even locked and bolted in a small room…
*
Hi, I’m 소원.
I was raped at the public toilet when I was 8, which causes me to suffer facial injuries, ruptured internal organs, pelvic bone fractures, permanent disability, and inability to have children due to large and small bowel outflow and necrosis, and used an artificial anus with a urinary bag for years…
*
Hi, I’m Saba.
I was shot and thrown into the river after being brutally executed with honor by my biological father Maqsood and my uncle Muhammad for wanting to marry the person I liked…
*
Hi, we are the victims of the Nth room case.
We were threatened with sexual slavery and illegally filmed in the room with sex videos and photos…
- PROCESS
— Sets of Photos
After picking up the materials from the Internet, I used Photoshop to create the combination of the scenes and the tools and the figure photos and translated them into black and white versions.
Scenes and Tools:
(铁链女) (소원)
(Saba) (Nth Room)
Figures:
(铁链女) (소원)
(Saba) (Nth Room)
— Big Wooden Box
1) Sketches & Prototype
2) Handling processed wood panels
(Laser cutting)
(Cutting angle of 30°on each side of wooden boards’ edges)
3) Assembling
— Small Acrylic Box
1) Sketches
2) Laser Cutting & Sticking
— Small thin wooden boards that are used for covering
Measuring the sizes of four faces and the holes on it that are to connect the threads + laser cutting
— Painting the big wooden box into a black
- DIFFICULTIES
In the process of making my project, I faced a variety of challenges some of them were familiar to me, but most of them were new faces for me. Though there were many difficulties, I really enjoyed the whole process of doing my project, and also enjoyed the feeling of handling those new challenges. For those difficulties, I picked some most typical cases and compiled them into three categories:
1) Calculation
–Actually, it was easy to measure the size of each board on the paper, however, it made me really hard to put them in reality. First of all, the thickness of the boards made the calculation even more difficult. Furthermore, after I cut all the boards, starting connecting them, there were always be some minor data deviations, which forced me to recalculate them millimeter by millimeter, costing plenty of time.
–The angles between each board are also crucial and still difficult to measure. I tried the mathematical method, modeling, etc. However, at last, I found that the most convenient way is to just do it, and you will figure out the right track, especially for measuring how many angles should it be cut on each edge of the board. For instance, at first, I planned to cut 60° on one side of the four of those boards, enabling the boards can successfully stick to each other. But in reality, due to the limitation of the cutting machine that only provided the largest angle of 45° to cut. I adjusted my plan to cut the 30° on both sides of every board.
2) Structuring
–Cutting the edge of each board was really a new try for me. After I cut each of the trapezoidal planks, I realized that I wasn’t able to use them because the machine used for cutting needed a full face against the other side to cut that the trapezoid did not have. Therefore I re-cut the 6 hexagonal boards, then cut the edge at 30° and cut them in half to form the final desired trapezoid.
–Sticking the boards was not as easy as I thought before, because the glue could not be squeezed out the faces of each board, which really needed to take careful cautions. In order to not let the glue appear outside, I just put a little hot glue between each gap, however, it is not enough for the box to be stable. Therefore, I tried to fill the gaps little by little with a small one-piece screwdriver dipped in hot glue.
3) Digital Technology
Because my project this time has a really heavy subject, I planned to put it in a dim and dark environment. However, in this way, the overlapping photosets could not be clearly seen. Hence, I decided to put a light inside the acrylic box. For this light, I really had a great number of tries, such as the LED with multiple colors, the combination of small LED, the big LED, etc. But all of them failed for it is not bright enough. And finally, I tried the NeoPixel RGB LED which fit very well. The problem did not end. As the NeoPixel is kind of a board, I tried to roll it into a cylinder, which almost broke the NeoPixel. At last, I decided to stick the NeoPixel LED inside the wooden box and under the acrylic box (just like the light picture shown in the previous paragraph).
- FUTURE PREDICTION
In my original design, there will be a shutdown function in this project. To be more detailed, according to the original plan, there will be no cover to the acrylic box at first, and after the audience sees each photoset and passed through, the wooden board will shut down, the photoset will be covered. In this way, I want to show the audience that it is urgent to discover those girls’ experiences or the potentially harmful situations. The truth may no longer be discovered if we are only casually understanding or looking at it.
Due to the time limitation, I made some adjustments to my project. However, in the future, I will definitely try my best to fulfill my original plan.
- ACKNOWLEDGEMENT😊
Thanks to Prof. Cici to help me to integrate my idea of the project!
Thanks to Prof. Andy to help me with modeling!
Thanks to Prof. Rudi to help me figure out the problem with NeoPixel LED!
Thanks to Prof. Marcele to teach me how to stick acrylic!
Thanks to my friends, Helen, Amy, and Aria, to give me strong support of my project!
- Works Cited
https://www.deviantart.com/gabriev82/art/Sky-Clouds-drawing-practice-187787449
https://www.deviantart.com/davidmnr/art/Ambiance-matinale-890753136
https://unsplash.com/photos/Nyvq2juw4_o