Video: 'Bound Unbound' Traces Chinese Artist Lin Tianmiao's 20-Year Progression

When you step into Asia Society Museum's latest exhibition, Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao, be prepared to be confronted with thread — yards and yards of thread — wrapped around everyday household objects, streaming off a bed and cascading down from a life-sized photograph of a woman. The woman in the picture is in fact Lin Tianmiao herself, who was described by the The Wall Street Journal in its recent profile as "using needle and thread to become one of China's top contemporary artists."

In the video above, Lin describes the significant role personal experience, both as a child and an adult, has played in inspiring her artwork. The video also takes a closer look at the sculpture and installations on display.

Bound Unbound is Lin's first American museum exhibition and uses a variety of threads and fabrics, along with multimedia and more esoteric items like animal bones and tree branches, to explore themes of gender, domesticity, and identity.

Asia Society Museum Director and exhibition curator Melissa Chiu explains that Lin's work is important because on one level, she has developed a very individual and focused visual vocabulary while at the same time viewers are "able to see her articulation of gender issues within a Chinese context."

Bound Unbound: Lin Tianmiao is on view through January 27, 2013 at Asia Society Museum in New York City.