The shifting ethos in Chinese art history, from serving political propaganda to expressing individual narratives, demonstrates how ethical considerations are inextricably linked to artistic expression.
My love was bound in red silk,/ Thrust out forcefully to claim long-forgotten aristocratic titles/ When the ships of old have/ Taken on the air for water/ And it is blood they inhabit, not the/ Sweat falling
Through writing and political activism, Ding questioned the ways in which China's State and Party demanded that she flatten her ideologies and personhood to fit cleanly within a single, legible identity: the model socialist woman.