Mothering, Caring, and Creating—from Domestic to Public: Practices of China’s Last Matrilineal Community and Chinese Women Artists

Motherhood has been at the core of Western feminist discourse since its beginning, as it is inherently linked to women’s rights in reproduction and labor justice. Nowadays, motherhood is no longer solely an identity issue but encompasses interventions from various perspectives, both within feminist movements and beyond. Creative fields have also recognized the profound necessity to reinterpret care and motherhood, and their potential in art. Despite the emerging interest, China has witnessed little academic or artistic connection with the discourse.

China’s last surviving matrilineal ethnic community, the Mosuo, living in the country’s southwestern borderlands, offers a new viewpoint to inspire and bridge motherhood and contemporary art from a non-Eurocentric perspective: What can a marginalized community teach us through their alternative wisdom regarding caretaking? Could their maternal-centered community practices suggest a model of empowerment for women artists and resistance to the global polycrisis?

This transdisciplinary paper, interweaving art analysis, ethnography, feminist theory, and maternal studies, seeks to explore the potential of the Mosuo’s matriculture in contemporary art creation—and, more broadly, the potential of maternal-based care in reshaping narratives and values in the art world. By interconnecting the Mosuo people and three Chinese women artists—Cai Yaling, Hu Yinping, and Tong Wenmin—I analyze how their art embodies care within domestic, community, and broader socio-political contexts. I argue that procreation and care are generative and creative labour in art creation, offering vital maternal aesthetics that radically challenges dominant patriarchal narratives.