A Taiwanese Artist’s Provocative Photographs Of Female Body Modification

Taiwanese artist Yung Cheng Lin has been known to push boundaries with his work. In this particular photo series, Lin, who also goes by the name 3cm, challenges the conception of womanhood and all its trappings. Using extremely simple props, Lin delves into the issues of sexuality, menstruation and the unrealistic beauty ideals that today’s women are forced to face thanks to the media.

While not all his images are as easy to interpret, they are largely visually stunning, with the added ability of making your gut churn if you view it through an unbiased lens. And isn’t that the goal of all art? To make you feel something, regardless of how nauseating it may be? While some of the photos go all-out in its almost perverse honesty, others are a lot subtler, opening themselves up to each viewer’s interpretation.

For example, the red thread that you see in so many of the images seems to depict a rather sinister connotation. In one image, it’s seemingly holding up the woman in the photo in an aim to correct her posture to a more socially acceptable one but in another, a trickle of blood makes its way cleanly down the neck of a woman who’s throat has been pierced by a rose.

All, however, have an exaggerated way of conveying a similar message to people experiencing the photographs--being a woman buried under all the expectations the world and society place on her, especially in a physical sense, is anything but simple. And that physical always finds a way to transcend, or descend, into something less tangible on the inside.

The way Lin has used everyday objects to convey deeper meanings definitely gives viewers something to think about.

Scroll down to see the images.