THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY

A Discussion of Female
Body’s Beauty Standards in
China using Imagination and
Illustration

Jinglan Ge
MDes 2021
Emily Carr University
of Art+Design

1. Abstract
“The Imaginary body” series of illustrations is
the core visual output of my thesis research.
It is a way for me to express, think and
acquire knowledge. It is also a means for me
to critically respond to the social problem
that I am concerned about: the stereotyped
and dogmatic beauty standards of women’s
bodies in modern Chinese society; how these
standards come into being under the political
purpose of gender oppression; and how they
seriously affect the establishment of the
positive and benign self-identity of modern
Chinese women.
In the research process, the studies I involve
include how women internalize social aesthetics and establish self-identity, sexual
objectification, body-image, and transfeminism. Nourished by these background and
secondary researches, I develop some conversation directions and prompts, with imagination as the core. With their help, I have
some conversations with some close friends
of mine (Chinese women of similar age).
These dialogues provide me great inspirations
so that I can take my illustration creation as a
reflection to visually show and communicate
my thinking and critical response around this
research topic.
The illustrations that emerge are fantastical,
hybrid, grotesque and powerful. These monster bodies constitute an offence to the existing relationship between the individual and
the collective with their peculiarity. Through
these illustrations, I ask questions about how
should we reflect on our relationship with
society and ourselves, and how could individuals build stronger and more independent

2.Table Of Content
self-identity in the modern patriarchal
heterosexual ruling system.
Keywords: Beauty standard, Feminist, Imagination, Sexual objectification，Body-image,
Illustration

1. Abstract
2. Table of Content
3. Acknowledgement
4. Introdution
5. Context & Framing
5.1. Background & Personal Experiences
5.2. Reflective Self & Sexual Objectification
5.3. Borrowing from Tranfenimism
6. Method & Methodology
6.1. Illustration = Imaging
6.2. Summer Exploration
6.3. Practice Method
7. Phase1: Body-Image Drawing
7.1. The Drawing Tool
7.2. From Body-Image to Imagination
8. Phase2: The Imaginary Body
8.1. Question Cards & Self Interview
8.2. Illustration Creation
8.2.1. “Elegant Bug”
8.2.2. “Left & Right Half”
8.2.3. “Contradictory Mixture”
8.2.4. “A Whole New World”
8.2.5. “The Meaning of Cute ”
8.3.The Second Round Conversations & Project Review
9. Conclusion
10. Reference
11. Appendix

3. Acknowledgement

4. Introduction

It is an important and unforgettable experience in my life to study in Canada for nearly
two years. I still remember how nervous, shy
and full of expectations I was when I set foot
on this land. At that time, I didn’t expect how
difficult as well as fascinating this journey
would be. I own my gratitude to my supervisor Cameron Neat for his generous help
in my research and studio projects, as well
as his enlightening and practical advices in
the writing of this paper. I would also like to
thank all the faculty in Emily Carr, especially
the instructors of the courses, for every conversation with them has greatly benefited me.

In this thesis research, I take illustration as a
tool to research the issue of Chinese female
body aesthetic in relation to body-image.

In the hard time of the epidemic, each of us
is fighting against the fear of the virus, the
constrained life and the loneliness caused by
it. MDes2021 is a great group. Thank you all.
Our working together is the best consolation.
I want to especially thank my compatriot in
the group, as their company and encouragement are the driving force for me to go
through the hard time. I would also like to
thank my families on the other side of the
ocean, for their gentle care dispels the haze
in my life.

From the theories from critical design, our
works can be used to reveal the harmful
ideologies in our lives and make the viewers
think critically, in the hopes of bringing social
justice, equality, and emancipation. Generally
speaking, the harmful ideologies here refer to
certain values and systems that the dominant
social classes disseminate and encourage the
working class to buy into in order to maintain
the firmness and stability of their rule, even
they are against the working class’s interest.
Those values are often generalized through
products like movies, magazines and designs
(Reference1, Bardzell, J. & Bardzell, S., 2013).
In this research, the specific harmful ideology
I am concerned about is the mass beauty
standards on women’s bodies in China—
which can be summarized as “white, thin and
young (白瘦幼)” and “the Internet hot face
(网红脸)” etc.—and the objectification oppression on women hiding in those standards.
These beauty standards define women’s
value by the commercialized body in order to
weaken women’s power and consolidate the
system. We live in this cultural environment
surrounded by commercial advertisments and
products implying the values, so we accepted
them with our brains washed, lacking substantial awareness of how they are divergent
with our well-being, comfort and confidence.
I think about expressing my concerns and
responding to this issue in a graphic designer
and illustrator’s role and appeal for more
consciousness and introspection. This thesis

aims to convey an idea: how to answer the
question of who I am from within, rather than
seeking recognition by external evaluation. It
asks people to break some notions we take
for granted probably for our whole lives,
and that is why imagination is involved and
becomes the core of my work, for it gives us
the ability to think independently, breaking
the restrictions from society.
Centered around the concept of imagination,
I have developed my own practice method.
Its foothold is the insights and critiques of
the sexual objectification reality, and the
direction of thinking it provides to the viewers
is how to regard and feel your body from the
inside subjective feels, to see it as a expressive entity of yourself, instead of evaluating it
from the perspective of a internalized social
view. Next, I have dialogues with my friends,
in which I give them the idea of changing
their body images freely and creatively. Then I
use these conversations as my inspiration and
create illustrations to reflect the possibility of
defining our bodies from within.
In this thesis, imagination and illustration as
my main methodological guidance and visual
communication, are the two most important
cores. For myself, they happen at the same
time and merge into one: the imagination
in my mind creates illustrations through my
hands, and illustrations are the entities of
imagination. Imagination takes me to break
the limitation of reality, break the stereotype
of “what human body should be like”, then
naturally there is no “what aesthetic about
the female body should be like”, which is

5. Context & Framing
5.1. Background & Personal Experiences
my criticism and response to the existing
aesthetic. Through talking with others, I
build perceptions of their inner feelings and
expectations, and I create illustrations of
“imaginary body” on this basis. The illustrations mixes the inner thinking with outer body
appearances to give a visual scheme of what
if your body is only up to your own mind.
Through them, we can picture a speculative
world where everyone’s body is unique due
to their personalities and ways of thinking
are unique . It means we are free from
social relations, and we become “an ultimate
self-untied at last from all depency” (9.Haraway, D. 1985, p67), “a woman in space.”

Since around 2015, the term “ Internet Hot
Face” has become popular in China. It refers
to “big eyes, pointy chin, white skin” as the
standards of a set of social media “beauty
face” models. Since then, Chinese social
media has given a set of stereotypical standards of “What kind of women is beautiful,”
which can be summarized as “white, thin and
young.” It has been magnified and commercialized online, like in entertainment news
and commercial advertisements. It strongly
defines the basic notions of female beauty in
many young men and women’s minds, which
includes myself.
In my growing years, especially during adolescence, as I began using and indulging in
social media, the external voices regurgitating
the beauty standards for women seem to
be everywhere and hard to refuse. After
unconsciously internalizing these stereotyped
beauty standards, I began believing that I
was “not beautiful.” This brought me a great
sense of shame and a lack of value. However,
at that time, I would only blame myself. Until
now, many years later, I still struggle with
these self-deprecating voices in my head. As
living this way for many years, I realize that
this is not a fight of my own. Similar anxieties
and inferiority complex are pervasive among
Chinese women. Many of us have a negative
relationship with our bodies, leading to different levels of anxiety, low body self-esteem,
continuous and compulsory body monitoring,
and even mental illness.

5.2. Reflective Self & Sexual Objectification
As mentioned above, most of us agree that
the existing social aesthetics of the female
body are problematic. But not many people
can separate themselves from its influence.
From stereotyped beauty standards to women’s acceptance and internalization, those
become an important index of self-worth
judgment, ultimately causing negative body
image and self-identity. It is a detrimental
interactive process with a deep historical
and political foundation. We are trapped
in this tide, lacking critical insight and
self-examination. In order to observe and
better understand this process so that I can
design interventions in the next step, several
questions arise in my research: how do
women internalize these external evaluation
criteria? Under the influence of these criteria,
how do they tend to view their bodies? How
does the perception of the body affect the
establishment of self-identity?
Firstly, the interpretation of our bodies and
the establishment of self-identity are under
containment of certain cultural conditions
and happen in social interactions, built on the
basis of seeing and being seen. Therefore,
“the body as an object cannot be separated
from the body as a subject; they are emergent from each other” (21, Waskul, D. D., &
Vannini, 2006). In Cooley’s looking glass self
theory, he thinks that the process of people
building self-consciousness is reflective,
which has three elements：
1.The imagination of our appearance to the
other person;
2. The imagination of his judgment of that

appearance,
3.Some sort of self-feeling, such as pride or
mortification. (4, Cooley, C. H., 1902, p152)
Secondly, in the artificial environment, the
body is more than a piece of flesh built with
blood and muscles; it is vested with symbolic
meaning and value as being gazed at and
discoursed. Our senses of identities are
constructed in such concoction of human
interaction, which can be “behavioural,
socially emergent, problematic, variable, and
in fact arbitrary”( 2, Brissett, D., & Edgley,
C.1990), for on great content it depends
on what information and values the culture
and society trying to feed us. When driven
by various political economy, society sets
specific evaluation criteria for the semiotic
value of the body—which can be called as
the mass aesthetic of the body— then some
of the bodies would be regarded as having
more value than the others. The bodies with
higher physical capital then reflect their
power onto other bodies, which then attempt
to emulate the former’s performance and
appearances. In part, these are the dynamics
by which the construct of “body image” is
constituted (21, Waskul, D. D., & Vannini, P.,
2006).
Body image refers to an individual’s cognition and evaluation of his or her body.
It is the earliest part of an individual’s
self-consciousness and a fundamental
part of self-identity. Body intention is
multi-dimensional and multi-layered, and
it shows different characteristics with age.
Meanwhile, body-image is also dominated

by social culture and evaluated by essential
others. In feminist theory, women’s negative
body-image is closely related to the social
environment of sexual objectification. Bartky
put forward the theory of sexual objectification in 1990, which means that women’s
bodies, body parts or sexual functions are
separated from themselves and become pure
tools or represent women themselves. That
is to say, when being sexually objectified,
women will be regarded as bodies, and the
value of their bodies is only to please and
used by others. A sexually objectified society
leads to the self-objectification of women
without their own awareness. Continuous
media guidance and long-term objectified
experience (being evaluated of body value) in
real life will induce women to internalize “a
third view” to observe the body/self, focusing
on controllable physiological characteristics,
rather than paying more attention to invisible
physical mental from a subjective perspective
(16, Roberts, T., & Fredrickson, B. L., 1997).
So far, we begin to unconsciously imagine
ourselves as a representative of a group of
others. Countless eyes are examining and
evaluating our bodies through our own eyes.
However, as the sovereignty of the body
owner, the feelings and wishes of “I” are lost.

The self is reflective

The self is objectified

5.3. Borrowing from Transfeminism
“There are as many ways of being a woman
as there are women.”
—Koyama, 2001, The Transfeminist Manifesto, p2.

is confining women’s self-expression in the
body with stereotyped gender concepts and
stifling individual’s uniqueness and the unquestionable right to define their own identity.

The subjectivity of women regarding body
images and the uniqueness of every individual
mentioned above largely coincide with the
principles of Transfeminism. Accepting theories of Transfeminism provided this research
with strong theoretical support and design
inspirations. This section aims to explain the
theory and the hopes it will help the readers
to understand the methodology clearly.

As non-trans women, the oppression we
face on the body-image issue is that female
bodies have to fit in specific standards to
be admitted as beautiful. This cognition
exerts anxiety and shame on the relationship
between us and our bodies, and it makes
many women tend to reform their bodies
via various means after internalized. This
behavior has not aroused widespread
vigilance——we might be even less alert to
the imposed physical identity and physical
modification than trans women. Transfeminists believe that both sex and gender are
artificially constructed. These constructs
help the ruling class maintain the stability
and firmness of the patriarchal binary gender
system. This concept reminds us to be alert
to the binary gender concepts that we often
take for granted, both physically and psychologically, for they are likely to become the
source of oppression. It does not mean that
Transfeminism or myself deny that there are
differences between men and women, but we
emphasize that there are differences between
individuals in essence, which are much more
important than gender differences. Recognizing this is an essential premise for us to
break down gender oppression.

Transfeminism is an essential part of the third
wave feminism, which enriches and extends
the intention of feminism greatly. Although
it comes from the voice of trans women, it
is of significance to the emancipation of the
all-women group, especially on the issue of
body-image. In Koyama’s The Transfeminist
Manifesto, she expounded on the body
dilemma of transgender women. Because
society makes no provision for the existence
of people whose anatomical characteristics
do not neatly fit into male or female, they are
mutilated routinely by medical professionals
and manipulated into living as their assigned
sex. It unnecessarily violated the integrity of
their bodies without proper consent (10, p4).
Furthermore, “this practice is oppressive to
trans and non-trans women alike as it denies
the uniqueness of each woman. (10, p2). The
dilemma faced by transwomen in appearance
evaluation can be regarded as the deduction
and extreme of the dilemma of non-transgender women. they are pretty similar, which

My practices are loyal to this understanding.
However, I must note that I do not mean to
guide the anyone I make conversation with
to obliterate or ignore their sex/gender,

as “no one is completely free from the
existing social and cultural dynamics of the
institutionalized gender system” (10, Koyama,
2001). Emancipation does not mean that we
require everyone to deny gender, but everyone has the right to choose equally. Gender,
as well as sex, is an essential basis for many
people to construct their self-identities.
Similarly, I do not emphasize gender in the
conversations either. It depends entirely on
how big and vital gender/sex plays a role
in their lives as in their awareness. Even as
a woman, every individual is different; as it
is said,” there are as many ways of being a
woman as there are women” (10, Koyama,
2001). The action of imagining the monster
body focuses on free will and choice. All
the imaginary elements appear in the conversations, whether mechanical or natural,
to satisfy specific personal interests. I am
making attempts to break the traditional
way of looking at “self,” which is no longer
to build a self-image through the reflection
of others but a somewhat subjective way to
achieve the integration of body and self and
close the rift between the self-role of social
significance and the inner identity.

6. Method & Methodology
6.1. Illustration = Imaging
In the previous research, I gain basic insights
into the process of people building self-identity and internalizing external evaluation. Then
the question of “how to raise a new idea of
how we regulate ourselves, no longer through
the evaluation and reflection of others, but
driven by the feeling and perspective of “I”
as the subject?”has emerged. Through the
study of transfeminism, I have established
a important value orientation of my own
work, that is, the respect and emphasis on
individual uniqueness. But what does it mean
the uniqueness of each woman, and how to
dig into it?
For the external environment, there are deep
historical and political reasons behind the
existence of these standards of beauty. It
is unrealistic to change the environment.
Moreover, it is also difficult to directly change
people’s way of looking at themselves, such
as reflective self and objectified self I mention
above, because these thinking patterns exists
in our cultural environment and education.
Therefore, the nature of this research
problem determines that it is not a problem
that can be “solved” with traditional design
thinking. So I set my role as to put forward an
idea to invite people to engage with through
visual communication. This is not a method
of education, but a critical rhetoric and a
creation of a reflective thinking space. At this
stage, I rediscovered my role as an illustrator,
and I use illustration as a medium to explore
and reflect on my inner world. Through this
action I find “imagination” as such a way to
enlighten thinking and interaction. The reason
why imagination can be critical is that it is

an independent thinking ability. It is contrary
to the traditional way of thinking in the
prescribed framework of reality. It encourages
people to break the rules; The reason why
imagination can be reflective is that it reflects
some wishes, interests and beliefs in people’s
hearts. The picture it outlines is often far
from the reality, highlighting where and why
the reality is disappointing. However, as
researchers and creators, the way we carry
out our works is always converse: we need to
discover where and why reality is disappointing, and then use a creative means to inspire
the user or viewers’ imagination to picture a
visional scene, thus get them to think about
how the reality is unsatisfactory as well. It is a
significant methodology in my thesis, which is
achieved by drawing.
As mentioned above, I am one member of my
research target group. So in the bottleneck
period of research, when I don’t know how
to answer my research questions, I try to
take self exploration as an a means to seek
for further research and practice direction.
Personally, I have been trained with drawing
skills for many years since childhood, which
determines that drawing is a familiar and
free technique of expression for me. So in
the summer of 2020, I did a lot of illustration
exercises, which directly brought imagination
into my vision of this research. Defined as
an artistic activity, drawing is a liberation of
the mind. The action of drawing creating and
imaging are an integrated and simultaneous
process. To a certain extent, the sensibility,
multi-level and mystery that cannot be
expressed in words coincide with the subtlety

and complexity of “self”, and imagination
also puts forward a new thinking direction
for some problems that are not solvable in
reality. Drawing is the way I communicate
with my own inner world, but the value is
more than that. It is full of possibility of
change. It is guided by a vague ideas in
mind. With every line or color I draw, it
makes the idea concrete, and meanwhile
points to a new unknown direction, asking”what next”? Thousands of new ideas
enmerge in that certain moment. Thus, it
is an action guided by thought, but it also
widens the area of thought. This dynamic
interactive significance exists in the process of my own drawing, which leads me
to explore the visual possibilities of human
body creatively and rebelliously. This significance also exists after each drawing work
is completed. As the creator, I am able to
reflect and clarify my own ideas through
reflecting on the drawing; and for the viewers, the drawing works can arouse different
stimulation and inspiration, emotionally or
intelligently.

6.2. Summer Exploration
Here I elaborate the significance of the illustration practice in the summer of 2020 to me.
These illustration practices are perceptual
products without clear intention and logic.
Because of this, they show the possibility of
transcending logic, which is the mockery and
digestion of reality by imagination. Generally
speaking, they are a tool for me to explore
myself, constantly challenging the boundaries
of some common sense of mine about beauty, gender, and self.
For example :
A drawing of a fat, bearded woman. I add
gorgeous colors and smooth rhythmic muscle
contours to her body;

“Chinese girls’ preferences in photo
retouching: what we want to be and what
we want to hide.”

A decorative drawing with human face as
a decorative element

One more decorative drawing with human face
as a decorative element: Old is beautiful

Decorative drawing of cutting and deconstructing human face

“How far am I from a Loli”
Loli subculture is popular in
East Asia. It is an aesthetic that
appreciates the beauty of female
children. In its development and
variation, many women tend to
dress up teenager-like. Female
children and teenagers, or any
young looking woman can be
called Loli in general.

I match my face with different
bodies: fat, tall, thin, muscular and
weak. Each of them seems to have
a different personality, but they all
have my face, look at me with my
own eyes and talk to me.

Every drawing comes from a vague idea
produced in a flash. Sometimes myself as
the creator have not think it through clearly,
when it already exists on the drawing paper
on its own. I have to stare at the drawing and
think about its meaning to me. They becomes
my reflection tools: the discomfort brought
by drawing an ugly woman is a challenge
and mockery to the concept of beauty and
ugliness constructed by myself from the
social stereotype; deconstruction of a human
face is a deconstruction and perspective
change of our inherent way of looking at
human body; taking selfie photos from
different angles and states is an exploration
of self diversity; and all the collages of my
face with different bodies, they symbolize
that my physical appearance can be changed
by my curiosity and willingness at a certain
moment, and nothing else, in a diversified
and wonderful virtual world -- that thin piece
of paper. Drawing can go beyond technical
and aesthetic display and become a tool for
thinking and knowing.
In the series of self portraits, I transformed
my body from various human bodies to a
completely free imaginary “monster body”,
with insect wings, crooked legs and big
claws. This is my rebellion and response
to human body aesthetics in reality. In the
illustration, the body is not merely a biological
physical entity, and it does not have to
undertake any function of pleasing others
and gaining social recognition. I want it to go
beyond function and sociality and become
a carrier of characteristics and demands
of each individual soul. If we can arbitrarily

change our body according to our own
wishes, then the relationship between us and
our body will reach an unprecedented state
of harmony and unity.

6.3. Practice Method
These early illustrations become the prototypes of my imaginary body project. I want to
get more people’s views on my research and
get to know the relationship between them
and their own bodies, in order to create more
“monster bodies” by building perceptions of
other people’s imagination, and use these
illustrations to propose and communicate
a new way to establish body-image and
self-identity. Therefore, based on the
background research, I put forward several
potential directions to stimulate imagination,
including visualizing the inner emotion and
personality, subjectively transforming and
grafting the human body with superpower,
and giving the body new symbolic and
relational meanings. I have designed a series
of interview cards, and as the interviewee
of myself, I create the first illustration out
of my imagination. After that, I consider the
potential of applying this method to more
audiences. But for the sake of ethical review,
I can’t directly invite them to participate
in my creative process. So what I do is to
proceed chats and conversations with others.
The experience of self interview has provided
me with guidance and preparation for the
conversations with my friends, enable me
to draw nutrition from each different conversation and create imaginary bodies. This
also confirms with the knowledge I gained
from transfeminism.The uniqueness of these
illustrations reflects the uniqueness of each
person’s thoughts and personality. Through
them, I convey to the world my excavating
and respecting to the value of individual
differences transcending gender differences.
After the completion of each illustration

creation, I show it to my friend, as to inspire
more thinking in these second round talks.
Generally speaking, this is a process of
dialogue—>creation—> dialogue. I use illustration as a medium to initiate two exchanges
of ideas. The first is between my friends and
me, and the second is between them and
these drawing images. And since these dialogues are the process of stimulating ideas
and knowledge around a specific problems,
and the illustrations are their translation,
variant and reflection, which makes the illustrations a communication symbol of attitudes.

7. Phase1: Body-Image Drawing
7.1. Drawing Tool
Throughout my inquiry I explored many research directions on the topic of female body
aesthetics and self-identity. I tried different
directions, such as refuting the single modern
aesthetic standard by exploring the diversity
of gender aesthetics in Chinese history (seen
in appendix) and redefining the standard
of female cuteness by designing a virtual
Festival (seen in appendix). These studies
are generally aimed at the external social
reality. I have accumulated some background
knowledge from these projects, but I am still
looking for a breakthrough to be closer to
women’s psychological feelings and thoughts.
The concept of body image I encountered in
summer research provided this opportunity.
Body-image is a broad and centralized concept about the relationship between people
and their bodies, including their views, beliefs
and emotional attitudes towards their bodies.
A negative body-image will make people
want to change their bodies. This concept
has strong extensibility, and the extended
related concepts include but are not limited
to body-anxiety, body-satisfaction, eating
disorder, body-monitoring, appearance
orientation, body-evaluation, drive for thinners, etc. Various theories centered around
body-image, and they explore the different
elements that affect people’s body-image.
Important theories include social comparison
theory (Festinger, 1954), social culture theory
(Thompson, 1999), objectification theory
(Fredrickson & Roberts, 1997), symbolic
interaction theory (Mead, 1934). Among them,
the social culture theory and objectification
theory have the most vital inspiration for

me. They all emphasize that the external
social gender oppression is transformed into
female self-oppression through the process
of individual internalization, which nourishes
the unhealthy relationship between us and our
body.
The exploration of body image is easy to
lead to a question, that is, how to transform
a vague and abstract idea about one’s body
into a specific visual image. Because only
when visual images can be established can
it be possible to carry out group research,
collect samples, analyze the common trends,
and provide design intervention schemes as
designers. Thus, I intend to design such a tool
to help visualize the body-image. For that, I
studied the existing quantitative methods of
body image in the fields of psychology and
medicine, including questionnaire, observation, self-drawing, image selection and image
adjustment. The advantages and disadvantages of the methods can be measured by
two dimensions. Firstly, how much is affected
by the subjective inference of the designer.
And secondly, whether the result can be
quantified.

The body-image quantitative tool I designed
mainly comes from the combination of image
adjustment method and self-drawing method.
The image adjustment method, also known
as the contour estimation method, provides
an auxiliary tool to get as close as possible
to the subjective judgment of their bodies by
adjusting the size and image distortion. On
this basis, I provide a tool for drawing. To
make it easier to operate, I add a coordinate
axis and options like: “from small to large
1-5” or “from wide to narrow 1-5”. Each
participant would choose an option based
on their subjective perception of their body
parts. Finally, I would flexibly combine all the
options to form a complete body contour and
then invite the subjects to make final adjustments based on the difference between
this contour and their perceptions to make
the final result as close as possible to the
subject’s cognition of their bodies. At first, I
use a stack of transparent paper to facilitate
stacking and combination. Later, out of consideration of the epidemic, I have made this
tool into a digital version.

The body-image I draw for myself using this tool:

The experiment on myself proves that this
set of drawing tool is effective in function.
However, the way of using it should be
cautious. I had a conversation with one friend
on this tool as well as its concept, who has
a background of North America. She holds
the idea that to use numbers to quantify
anyone’s body in a controversial and sensitive
action. From my intention as its designer,
this body-image drawing tool is just a set of
visual aids, and there are not any value evaluation intention in it. However, this talk made
me think about why there are not anyone
from a Chinese background before (in fact
also after) her express similar idea to me. I
have discussed this question with some of
my compatriot friends, and we agree that the
Chinese social environment has not get to the
level of sensitivity for us to feel discomfort
seeing numbers linking with our bodies. This
is something worth further thinking.

7.2. Phase2: From Body-Image to
Imagination
At this stage, I think about how to use imagination. Imagination is free and willful, but I
also need to limit it to a certain range, as a
reflection and response to the body-image
problem. Therefore, based on the study of
the concept of body-image, I put forward
three potential thinking directions. The derivation process is shown in the table on the
right：
From three facets of body-image:
1. Upward social comparison leads to negative body-image;
2. External objectification environment leads
to women’s self-objectification;
3. Body-image is contextualized.
From these three points, through deduction
and analysis, I put forward three potential
solutions:
1. Externalizing and visualizing the inner emotions and personalities to resist the tendency
of women’s self-suppressing the real feelings
to meet the social expectations;
2. Imagine the ability to change the body
at will to emphasize women’s “body
sovereignty”;
3. Imagine new body values and social
expectations to eliminate the oppression and
restriction in reality.

8. Phase2: The Imaginary Body
8.1. Question Cards & Self Interview
Guided by the three thinking principles
above and the knowledge I have gained from
previous studies, I have designed a series of
question cards as prompts, which are divided
into two parts: body-image and imagination.
I have used them to interview myself. Here I
show these cards as well as my handwritten
notes in the self-interview:

This interview gave me a clearer idea of
how to create more powerful imaginary body
illustrations. I refined the information in the
interview into more abstract word clouds:

In the project of the imaginary body, I produced five illustrations so far. The first one
is based on the self interview using these
cards directly, the second one is more of a
abstract self-expression, and the last three
are inspired by my conversations with some
of my friends. They are all Chinese girls who
are close friends to me. And the conversations have led me to more interesting ideas,
like, how come we tend not to talk about our
bodies in daily life, while we long for being
heard of who we are? We rarely talk about
our bodies ignoring evaluation criteria raised
by the outside world, for the feelings and
tendencies it triggers are diffidence, evasion,
weakening problems and being offended. Why
is our relationship with our bodies a sensitive
topic? This reflects that we are not holding a
positive attitude about our bodies, and we are
not really “indifferent” or neutral. However,
while we talk about the imaginary superpowers，or to use abstract symbols, colors or
shapes as metaphors to represent the self,
the conversation is obviously more relaxed
and comfortable. This part of the dialogue is
illogical and relatively far from reality; they
arouse some interesting fantasies or memories, which have no standard to evaluate the
good or bad, right or wrong. Morover, from
the perspective of recalling and exploring
their own wishes, it is a dialogue between
us and our inner self. I realize that taking a
conversation with ourselves provides great
power. Many of us lack an environment to be
heard and understood in reality. When we talk
about a woman’s body, whether it’s belittling
or praising, it’s always somewhat frustrating
because it makes us feel that “you’re paying

attention to my body, but you’re not paying
attention to me.”. Thus, when we feel the
negative emotions caused by external oppression -- the male gaze and sexual objectification, the way we make ourselves strong
comes from the exploration and expression
of our inner world. These conversations give
me strong desire to express the inner voice
of woman with my illustrations.

8.2. Illustration Creation
8.2.1. “Elegant Bug”
I translate the words from the self interview
with visual language. I made a self portrait first
in front of the mirror, and then superimposed
the elements of imagination on it. In this
drawing, the most prominent part is that I
draw myself as an insect, with the arthropod
body and multiple pairs of arms and thin and
transparent wings. It comes from a strange
fascination I have been having with insects.
Although I fear bugs as much as most people
do in reality, I can ignore the hostility between
humans and insects for a while in the fantasy
world. When I think about flying, the insect
appears first in my mind rather than birds. I
always believe that an insect is an elegant animal, small and delicate, with beautiful patterns
on the body. Compared with cats or dogs with
cute features domesticated by humans, their
beauty is not flattering; they never need to
please human beings. It gives them the qualities of independence and pride, which is in line
with my expectations for myself.

Moreover, based on this insect body, I added
some of the second preferred flying animal
bird features, including gorgeous compound
eyes and feathers. In the aspect of superpower, I add many interconnected brains to
myself. Together with multiple pairs of arms,
they symbolized the power of the intelligent
world and the physical world respectively.
This is a pursuit of absolute independence,
which means that I do not need to rely on
any other person to support and prove myself
in the existence of both spirit and entities.
I also added a childhood pet cat of mine to
this drawing, an evocative element of gentle
emotions and good memories. Ultimately, I
gave myself the ability to change my weight
number, and I write 0.00kg, which means a
complete relief from weight anxiety.

8.2.1. “Left & Right Half ”
The second illustration in this series is a
concept map, which is not attached to someone’s specific and private thinking about their
own bodies, but comes from my abstract
expression of the concept of “imaginary
body”. In this image, I want to create a sharp
contrast between the left and right parts of
the body, highlighting the right side of the
strangeness, and how this strangeness gives
it great power.
I add animal body features to a human body.
She has the wings of a butterfly, which
enables her to fly. There is fine dust on
the wings, which in my imagination has the
function of confusing and conquering people.
She has a breast in the shape of a triangular
cone instead of a soft and seductive circle.
Also, her pudendum, which looks like a flower
made of spines, is beautiful and dangerous,
full of aggression. Her right hand and feet are
sharp claws, and there is a hard horn on her
knee. These are the physical strength I gave
her. The eye is a cat’s eye. In ancient Chinese
legends, cat’s eyes can communicate with
Yin and Yang, and they can discern human
souls. Her skin is covered with totem like
patterns, as if the tendons and vessels are
flowing slowly, holy and mysterious. When
drawing this half body, it occurred to me
that no matter in eastern or Western mythology, we all have a certain kind image of God,
which is a combination of human body and
animal body. It is a symbol of great power,
and also shows that the spirit of nature is a
mixture of justice and evil, wisdom and ignorance. Compared with the right half of the
body, the left half of the ordinary human body

appears pure and fragile. There are flowers
on her hair, what I want to say through them
is that in reality, human beings may love
nature, but it is difficult for us to trace and
rediscover our deep relationship with nature.
We are imprisoned by social relations. So we
love flowers, but we can only put it on our
hair as a decoration, but we can’t really turn
flowers into a part of our body.
This illustration is a concentrated expression
of the concept of imaginary body. It is full
of metaphors and it even looks evil in some
extent that is what give her image power and
inviolability. But anyway, like the first one, it
comes from my own previous knowledge. I
urgently need new nutrition to nurture more
such “monsters”. So, in the next stage, I
began to get new inspiration from other
people’s thinking.

Sunflower headdress

8.2.2. “Contradictory Mixture”
From this illustration, I digest and transform
my conversations with others and show them
in the form of drawing. I try a new method in
creating the second illustration, which is the
superposition of layers. I draw each element
on each piece of paper independently and
then stack them together, which allows me
to modify and adjust flexibly in my painting. However, it is very time-consuming as I
need to edit every layer individually. So it is
not adopted in other illustrations.

Snow Mountain

A normal body-image

The rich hair

Heart: cat in a box

Cat face

Vine fingers and body, fishtail, and stuffed animal

Big angle wings

In this piece of illustration, the body is a contradictory mixture of freedom and confinement,
strength and fragility. She yearns for security and
has a fear of the unknown, but she also hopes
to overcome her fear and make herself stronger.
Her heart is a cat in a box, which is her demand
for a sense of security and stability. She has a
huge fishtail, which allows her to swim freely in
the water. That is what she (the person I had the
conversation with) can’t and fear to do in reality. Her fingers become vines, which can extend
far away, breaking through the limits of space
and distance; At the same time, these vines also
tightly tie her own body: she is imprisoned by this
freedom and power. She has huge, angelic wings.
They enable her to fly and fight. But when she
feels lonely and cold, the wings also become the
providers of warmth and security, enveloping her
whole body. Her hair is thick, with a sunflower
wreath on it, representing brightness, warmth and
enthusiasm. Her face is a cat face, beautiful and
mysterious. Snow mountain represents tranquility
and strength, while cloud is freedom. The combination of these elements makes the imaginary
body look like a goddess of nature. But don’t
ignore, her arm is still holding a stuffed rabbit toy,
which reveals her inner vulnerability.
The human personality is a complex mixture. It is
universal and natural for contradictory characters,
thoughts and love to appear in a single person.
We all reconcile, and grow in the struggle with
our expectations and disappointments. This is
the charm of human nature, which is much more
attractive than a so-called “perfect body”.

8.2.4. “A Whole New World”
This illustration focuses more on the questions
of “what would the world be like if humans
could change their bodies at will? What
change will happen in human society? What
will that kind of life experience be like”？ This
imaginary body shows intense curiosity. There
is a circle of flowers on her head, and it is
actully the life trip of one single flower. The
flower is born in the morning, bloom in the
noon, decay and wither in the evening. This is
a curiosity for the inhuman short life experience, and also a philosophical thinking about
the life process. Is it possible for us to experience the ephemeral life with human body? The
lower part of her body has become the hoof
of herbivores, which means the worship and
homage to the Faun in Greek mythology. It
also symbolizes the possibility of establishing
a new connection and mutual integration between human and nature. Her hands became
cat’s paws. They were fluffy with pink pads,
but they could also stick out sharp nails when
attacking. It’s also a sign of returning to the
wild, which can be both gentle and cruel. And,
what if humans had tails? Would it share some
of the functions of hands? And what would the
social economy and cultural industry change
with the existence of the tail? After the illustration was finished, I also discussed with my
friend about whether human beings still need
clothes in this imaginary world. Perhaps there,
clothes no longer bear physical and moral
functions, but merely a remnant of the old
human society.

8.2.5. “The Meanning of Cute”
The key word for this illustration is “cute”. My
friend imagine that her body would become
small and cute. As a feminist, I am very sensitive to this word, because it often implies
the preference for women’s youth, weakness
and flattery in the general East Asian context,
and weakens the power of women. But from
my conversation with my friend and what
I know about her, it’s clear that this word
doesn’t share the same meaning here. So
before drawing this illustration, I have drew a
mind map to help me clarify the meaning of
“cute”.

I have draw some of her favorite cartoon
characters in the visual map, such as Teletubbies (1997 BBC children’s program, aiming
at children aged 1-4), Chibi Maruko-chan
(Japanese animation series, depicting the
daily life of a nine-year-old girl ), Piglet from
Winnie the Pooh, etc. I feel the temperament
of these cartoon characters. They help me
understand that when we remove the gender
label and stereotype to see the trait of
“cute”, it is actually a kind of temperament
of friendliness to the world, and it represents
childlike happiness, purity and innocence.
Itself is a beautiful trait, but the gender position shaped by the social environment often
makes the word stigmatized. Before I pay
attention to the temperament of it belonging
to whether a man or a woman, I forget that
it is an individual’s human temperament first.
Therefore, creating this illustration brings me
thinking, and it is also a break and reconciliation between me and my gender position.
It teaches me to see independent individuals
before I see gender.
In this illustration, she has a fluffy squirrel
body. Squirrel is a kind of cute little animal,
but it is agile and alert, which makes its cuteness not stupid. She wants to have stronger
mobility, such as the ability to move quickly
and fly. So the little squirrel also has wings
and it is wearing roller skates. She is attracted by the beauty of the world, and holds
universal kindness to the world. These things
she loves appear on her body in the form of
patterns: flower, fruit, bird. But as mentioned
above, this kind of kindness is not foolish, so
she also has an super-intelligent brain, which

can draw knowledge directly from books.
Her temperament can be summarized into
an abstract shape, which is like a mass of
water, or a constantly changing bubble. This
shape is mellow without any angles, which
represents goodwill and inclusiveness.

8.3. The Second Round Conversations
& Project Review
I show each illustration to my interlocutor
wondering her reactions and opinions. People
have complex and subtle feelings for these
illustrations. They can feel the relevance of
these illustrations to their inner worlds, and
our conversations are called back. At the
same time, they also feel some embarrassment and discomfort, even offended a little.
Indeed, most of us are more accustomed to
containing our fantasy in our minds rather
than making it an entity and a part of our
body. It is undeniable that the combination
of the human body with animals, plants or
machinery, and the vivid visual works display
is an offence to the deep-rooted social ethics
in our minds, especially women.
We always have a contradictory attitude
towards showing and expressing our true
selves. On the one hand, we expect to express our inner self through appearances and
stand out from others with our uniqueness.
On the other hand, we are afraid of being too
unique to be incompatible with mainstream
social values and unacceptable by the collective. It is natural but also sad to suppress
self-feelings to get social recognition. This
is what every girl who pursues the “beauty”
of “Internet hot face” and “being white, thin
and young” feels. The social identity we seek
brings us troubles and pain, but we can’t
abandon it to face our real self - as what
is the real self? The illustrations of “ the
imaginary body” are trying to answer this
question. While drawing these, I always think
about some people who dress t strangely that
we occasionally see in reality or in the news.
Like people who have their faces covered

with the tattoo, the ones who have colourful
hair, and the people who insist on wearing
ancient clothes in public places. They are real
life versions of the “monster body,” expressing their own existence and the idea of “I
don’t need society to identify with me.” Not
everyone understands or agrees with these
behaviours, but we can’t deny the significance
of their existence, that is, a questioning
attitude: why does a person’s expressing their
inner self become an offence to the collective? Is it the person who expresses it or the
social environment itself that is problematic?
This is also the question I’m asking through
the imaginary body, that is, why does this
image that reflects your own inner thoughts
and expectation offend you in turn? What it
offends is not our emotions, but some of the
public orders, good customs and social ethics
that we hold inside. And it is these ethical
norms that try to educate us and require us
to form a mediocre member of the social
collective in a way that we are ignorant. They
oppress us not only from the outside, but also
from the inside, leading us to be ashamed of
legitimate self-expression.
These illustrations are a mixture of the
imagination of the people I have talked with,
and my own organization, understanding, and
recreation of the content. From dialogues
to visual images, this is a multi-level and
multi-stage process. It is the exchange and
reflection of the ideas between me and them.
At first, imagination is a vague idea that
exists in our minds. I invite people to put it in
words through the conversations, concretize
it with various metaphors, and think about its

meaning to each of us in the process. This
is the first translation. Then, I do the second
translation through drawing. Finally I show the
finished illustration works to my interlocutors.
So far, the action of a double-reflection has
been created. The illustration and the person’s mind are like two face-to-face mirrors.
They reflect on each other and refer to each
other. This is an interactive flow. Language
communication and translation are often distorted to a certain extent for our inner ideas
are broad and complex. What the creator
can do is try to capture a fleeting moment
to convey the vague turnover of ideas in
the interaction between subject and object,
environment and the heart. We use our visual
works to convey these ideas. They are static,
but the process of creation, as well as the
moment when the work and the viewer look
at each other face to face, have occurred
the exchange of ideas and mutual inspiration,
which is dynamic. For me, I get inspirations
from my conversations with my friends. I
capture the complex and wonderful ideas
in that moment and generate knowledge,
creating hybrid and strange illustrations. They
the reflection and variation of the resistance
to body ethics that once flashed in people’s
minds. And new, fuzzy and messy, potential
communication with the viewers happen when
the works are in display.

9. Conclusion
My thesis project comes from my deep
concern about the issue of Chinese women’s
body aesthetics and self-identity. I see
and personally feel that the rigid aesthetic
standards popular in modern Chinese society,
which take the white, thin and young as the
beauty, are destroying Chinese women’s
comprehension of self-worth and strength.
I try to discuss whether we can change
the way we look at our bodies from the
perspective of women’s inner feelings. In
the research, the study of reflective self and
sexual objectification theory enables me to
see more insightfully how women internalize
these aesthetic standards and form self
oppression; transfeminism theories enables
me to understand that one way for women
to empower themselves is to emphasize the
legitimacy of individuals being unique, rather
than to reform themselves to cater to the
dogma of the outside world; through the study
in body-image, I see that our cognition of our
body at the crosspoint of internal and external
interaction. The negative relationship between
us and our bodies is long-term structured
and multi-level. The different aspects provide
space for imagination to intervene. Through
these researches, I develop this practical
method of interview-illustration-reflection. I
use literal and visual language to interact with
participants, so that this interactive process
provides an opportunity for contemplation. I
observe and collect reactions and reflections
from participants and myself at each stage.
I’m not afraid that some parts of the process
can be disturbing. I think the most important
value appears in the discussion and reflection
of discomfort.

Illustration is an artistic way of practice and
expression. Through drawing I actively explore
complex problems and promote the emergence of potential discussion direction with
intuition and sensibility. And the final image
also causes visual and emotional impact shock
with its intuitiveness and hybridity. The metaphorical, elusive and powerful inclusiveness
of drawing echos with the complex concept of
self as expression of emotion and narration.
As an illustrator, drawing as a medium of
thinking and communication is effective for
me.
Up till now the practice path I am experienced
in is using dialogue and drawing to create
the exchange of imagination and images,
which takes place between me, my images
and my interlocutors. What I will be more
concerned about in the next stage is the more
far-reaching impact that can happen after the
completion of the image creation. My illustration is a tool for me to inspire and explore
myself. When I use the dialogue with others as
my inspiration and present these illustrations
to others for feedbacks, I need to further think
about what it means to me, to my interlocutor
and more potential external audiences. Are the
works meaningful only to me and the people I
talk to? Does the thinking around it necessarily need the assistance of linguistic dialogue?
Is it possible to spread and apply this artistic
method more widely? These illustration
images of human body’s misappropriation and
transformation can become avatars, which can
arouse more thinking and resonance with its
critical and rebellious attitude, and that would
be the direction my further exploration goes
and efforts being taken.

10. Reference
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11. Appendix

More Works of Mine in Grad Study

11.1. Video: Collage of Face-Oct. 2019

11.2. Application: Diversified Women
Aesthetics in Ancient China-Mar.2020

Through this project, I discuss the diversity and
variability of aesthetics from the perspective of
ancient China. This application takes the Tang
Dynasty as an example. Users could input their
own photos, choose and match the makeup
and clothing of the Tang Dynasty, and finally
get a digital Chinese painting in Tang style of
their own.

11.3. Communication Design Project:
Loli’s Festival-June-Aug. 2020
“Loli” is a variant of “Lolita”, which is from
the novel Lolita published by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov in 1955.
The Loli Festival date is October 11st., because “1011” looks like “LOLI”. This festival
is a very small-grouped and informal “Loli”
subculture product in China, expressing an
aesthetic preference for “cute girl”, and this
cuteness mainly comes from the innocent
and pure feeling of the child-likeness. In its
development, this concept is male-gazed and
women-disempowering.
In this project, I take communication design
to question the aesthetics and values behind
Loli culture, and through the development
of a set of graphics I redefine the standard
of cuteness of women. I choose the image
of “licking lollipop”, which often appears
in Loli subculture. I add aggressivity in this
scene to get rid of its erotic meaning, and
make it a symbol of female power. The early
hand-drawing drafts, posters, and brochure
designs are displayed.

THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY
THE IMAGINARY BODY