The gallery ef presents an artistic and scientific approach on Nu Shu, a mysterious Chinese language written only by women to express their misfortunes and innermost feelings and to share them with other female friends.

Until the cultural revolution Chinese women were discouraged to learn the standard Chinese script. Nu Shu was therefore invented and used secretly, carefully guarded from men. Women learned the writing from their “sworn sisters” and mothers. They wrote down songs in Nü Shu, which were delivered on the third day after a young woman’s marriage to communicate their hopes for her happiness but also their sorrows being parted.

The gracefully-written rhombic Nushu syllabic characters are structured by just four kinds of strokes, including dot, horizontal, virgule and arc, and can be spoken in dialect. The shapes resemble tears which have been wept.