In China, only married women are entitled to undergo fertility treatments. The artist Xiao Lu responded to this, and her own search for a sperm donor as a single woman, in her 2006 video Sperm. The work was originally a performance and documentary video, in which the artist (who had recently ended her long-term relationship with the artist Tang Song) consults a Western document about IVF. The artist has said previously that work is rooted in personal feelings and acts that often become politicized. This photograph document from Sperm is a key part of the discussion at Matrescene, a group show at Richard Saltoun gallery, the first in a two-part exhibition exploring the different sides of the maternal experience and themes around “mothering”.
