Prune Nourry’s Army of Schoolgirls

It’s been 40 years since the discovery of China’s Terracotta Army, a sort of installation of thousands of statues of Chinese imperial guards, rendered in clay around 221 B.C.

Prune Nourry decided it was time for an update.

I met the French-born, New York-based sculptor in 2012, just before she started work on Terracotta Daughters. It consists of 116 statues of schoolgirls and is intended to provoke conversations around gender and China, where a whole generation of unmatched bachelors attests to the legacy of the country’s one-child policy. As with the Terracotta Army, every statue in Terracotta Daughters is rendered in clay, and each is different.

Nourry wanted me to document the first 10 days of her project, but the project snowballed. I ended up spending 42 days over seven months …

Nourry wanted me to document the first 10 days of her project, but the project snowballed. I ended up spending 42 days over seven months with her and Xian Feng, a local collaborator, at a working Terracotta Warrior replica factory in Xi’an, China. There, Terracotta Daughters was thrown into the mix of everyday duties.

The replica factory itself was a three-story brick building, with only the first two floors in service. We began production in winter. The factory’s first floor was heated with a bin of coal. The second floor was at the hands of Mother Nature, and most of the windows were missing. Before we wrapped each night, Nourry and Xian Feng covered incomplete sculptures in blankets to protect them from the drop in temperature overnight. If the sculptures froze, it would destroy their progress.

Nourry’s Terracotta Daughters has been exhibited in Shanghai, Paris and Zürich. The statues will travel to New York in September before returning to China in 2015. Then the plan is for them to be buried for 15 years and “discovered” in 2030, as a mock archeological site. By then, we hope, the gender preference debate will have shifted to the schoolgirls’ side.

 

        

  

Xian Feng creating the distinct uniform of the Terracotta Warrior on a miniature Terracotta Daughter.

 

        

  

Pieces in the oven.

 

        

  

Xian Feng and another craftsman take a break after loading and firing the oven.

 

        

  

Xian Feng prepares a mold.

 

        

  

Prune reworks a few details.

 

        

  

Xian Feng rests his sanding disc atop a sculpture.

 

        

  

Xian Feng patching cracks.

 

        

  

Sculptures before the patina is added.

 

        

  

Discarded remnants from casting the sculptures.

 

        

  

Nourry making an adjustment.

 

        

  

Xian Feng applying the patina.

 

        

  

The completed sculptures.