Mirarnos desde el Este/Looking ourselves from the East, V Chinese Female Videoartists Festival

The Chinese Female Videoartists Festival was launched in 2015 in Mexico City, with participating artists from both mainland China and the diaspora. This 2025 we celebrate 10 years of continuous realization of this project, whose objective is to create bridges of knowledge between China and Spanish-speaking countries through the video art of its women. This time, the inclusion of video artists from Mexico, Peru, Spain and Costa Rica, intertwines our visions with the ones coming from the East and establishes a rich dialogue to look at all of us, and to be looked at.

Chinese, Hispanic and Latin American cultures, although geographically distant, share profound social and historical parallels. However, their paths differ significantly. Bringing these artists together in our festival allows us to perceive the existing convergences that unite us as women artists and strengthen both our creative and human paths.

The thematic axes we present arose naturally from the interests and concerns of the artists themselves: their own identity in ¿Qué es eso de ser yo? (What is this about being me?); the embrace of what has been in El asedio a la memoria (The siege to Memory), the relationship with the Earth in Éramos árboles (We were trees), the ambivalent mother/earth in Donde crece la hierba (Where the grass grows), and the exploration within uncertainty in El futuro fue ayer (Future was yesterday). As a curator, I never cease to be surprised by the different, yet complementary, approaches of all the proposals presented. The works reflect not only different perspectives on life and society, but also the technological resources and aesthetic education available to them. The Hispanic-Latin American artists tend to create raw and politically charged works that speak of resilience, denunciation and resistance, while the Chinese artists take advantage of cutting-edge technology to explore futuristic and immersive narratives, while drawing on their particular observation of the world and the memory of their ancestral traditions.

Our aim is to bridge understanding and friendship between our peoples through the artistic vision of their women, to foster dialogue and collaboration, and to inspire a new generation of artists to explore the intersections between tradition and modernity, local and global, past and future. This festival, therefore, is not only a celebration of women’s video art but a call to action: the world is already interconnected, let’s act for life. Art is the creative version of love.
Elizabeth Ross