Bei-Dai: The Art of Mother Love Exhibit At MCC On Main

The new exhibit at Manchester Community College’s auxiliary campus “MCC on Main” features the work of mothers of the Bei Dai, painting of Quan Handong. these pieces were hand made by southwest chinese mothers. this is striking exhibit with a lot of colors and flavors as viewers can take a free look at the life of southwest chinese’s mothers Bei-dai which literally means baby carriers.

 

These Bei Dai’s are hand made before the babies are born and shows a lot love. They depict the aspirations of the expected mother as each symbol and design has a meaning. One Bei Dai has a fish that the iao people see as more fertile. The fish appear to be playing under the lotus meaning that the son is to multiply and be prosperous and uninterrupted. A lot of the carries are colorful because the Chinese people believe that the heavy colors could scare away demons.

A student from MCC originating from Northeastern China, Jiamei Liang, thought that the exhibit was “very interesting, and shows the love of the mother… its also a great exhibit because I didn’t see this where I lived and as a baby I wasn’t brought up with Bei Dai, where I lived was more of an industrial part of China.”

“Bei Dai literally means you can take your baby anywhere… so that means out into labor work like farming,” Liang said, “Its cool to see the neat stitching, and its cool to see what the expectations of the mother was.”

The painting of Hangdong are based around two series. “Ox” expresses the human nature-strives constantly for self improvement. The second is inspiration in which it explores the meaning of freedom from the eastern and western abstraction. These work are light and has general meaning freedom and expression.