Amy Meng, Your’s Truly, 2021. Courtesy: the artist and Northern Rivers Community Gallery, Ballina.

The act of playing is far from innocent. Whilst games are instrumental to a child’s psycho-social development, they are also imbued with problematic gender norms. Drawing influences from manga, anime and video games, Amy Meng‘s Playing House situates the bishoujo (beautiful young girl) within the context of kawaii (cute) culture and the domestic landscape, and investigates how our fascination with her escalates the infantilisation and pornification of society.

The practice of ‘women’s work’ enables Meng to simultaneously cut, pierce and stitch together the very fabrics that marginalize and subjugate women. Many works reference and incorporate familiar household items, such as toys, worn clothing, candy wrappers, etc., as a nod to Winnicott’s idea of ‘transitional objects’, comfort objects which soothe the infant in the absence of its parents. The idealized bishoujo can be viewed as such a transitional object, packaged and marketed by kawaii culture to satisfy those who indulge in infantile fantasies.

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