Song Huai-Kuei 宋怀桂 (7 December 1937 – 21 March 2006), also known as Madame Song, was a Chinese artist, actor, fashion icon, socialite, and businesswoman.[1] She is seen as having been instrumental in introducing China to an international fashion and lifestyle scene at a time when it was largely isolated from the rest of the world.[2]

Song was married to Bulgarian tapestry artist Marin Varbanov (1932-1989) and worked as fashion designer Pierre Cardin's agent in Beijing during the 1980s.

Life and career edit

Song studied at the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing.[3] This is also where she met Varbanov, who was part of a group of exchange students, in 1954. They married in December 1956 - the first mixed marriage in the People's Republic of China.[4] Song and Varbanov moved to Sofia, Bulgaria in 1959, where they worked as artists.

Song met Italian-French fashion designer Pierre Cardin in 1979 in Paris, and started working for him to launch his brand in Beijing. In 1980, she moved back to Beijing and worked full-time for Cardin.[3] She helped to open the restaurant Maxim's de Paris in Beijing and served as its manager for two decades.[5]

In 1987, Song played the mother of Pu Yi in The Last Emperor.[6]

Song had two children, Boryana[5] and Phénix Varbanov[7].





Fatoumata Barry (b. 23 September 1954) is considered the first female architect in Guinea.[8][9] She is also the former president of the Ordre National des Architectes de Guinée, and founder of the Guinean architecture firm ARCHI PLUS.[8]

Biography edit

Fatoumata Barry was born in Mamou in Middle Guinea and is the daughter of a Guinean politician.[8]


Elle obtient son baccalauréat en 1973 au lycée 02 aout et entre à l'Université de Conakry en Génie civil avant de bénéficier l'année suivant d'une bourse du président cubain Fidel Castro pour étudier l’architecture à la Havane pendant 5 ans[9].

Carrière professionnelle edit

Elle a été aussi conseillère en économie urbaine auprès du ministre d’alors, puis inspectrice générale adjointe du même ministère, représentante de la société civile au Conseil national de Ttransition (CNT) de 2010 à 2013, , présidente de l’Ordre des architectes de Guinée entre 2016 et 2018.

Références edit

  1. ^ Li, Pi. "Madame Song: A Life in Art and Fashion (synopsis)". Foyles. Retrieved 1 July 2023.
  2. ^ "Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China | M+". www.mplus.org.hk. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  3. ^ a b "Madame Song: A Chinese Love Story". Asian Art Newspaper. 2021-05-26. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  4. ^ "Points of Encounter: A Timeline | Arthub". arthubasia.org. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  5. ^ a b "M+ presents new Special Exhibition Madame Song: Pioneering Art and Fashion in China | M+". www.mplus.org.hk. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  6. ^ The Last Emperor (1987) - IMDb, retrieved 2023-07-01
  7. ^ Group, P. M. B. "Phénix Varbanov: Oceanus procellarum". bsf.spp.asso.fr. Retrieved 2023-07-01.
  8. ^ a b c "Dame de Fer : Voici le Parcours de la première femme architecte en République de Guinée". Actualité Feminine (in French). 25 January 2019-. Retrieved 2019-03-07. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b www.actu-elles.info (13 February 2019). "Première femme architecte de Guinée, patronne d'un cabinet d'architecture, Mme Fatoumata Barry est une femme distinguée". Actu-elles.info (in French). Retrieved 2019-03-07.


Catégorie:Naissance en septembre 1954 Catégorie:Naissance en Guinée française Catégorie:Personnalité guinéenne Catégorie:Chef d'entreprise


Yhonnie Scarce (born 1973) is an Australian glass artist whose work is held in major Australian galleries. She is a descendant of the Kokatha and Nukunu people of South Australia, and her art is informed by the effects of colonisation on Indigenous Australia,[1] winning her the 2008 inaugural South Australian recipient of the Qantas Foundation Encouragement Award.[1]

Biography edit

Scarce was born in Woomera, South Australia and lives and works in Adelaide and Melbourne.[2] Scarce is influenced by the qualities of glass as a medium and uses her work to address Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues including genocide, racism, environmental degradation and intergenerational trauma.[2]

After leaving school, Scarce worked first in administration at the University of Adelaide, then as a trainee at the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute in the visual arts department. While at the Centre for Australian Indigenous Research and Studies at the University of Adelaide in 2001, she enrolled in a Bachelor of Visual Arts at the University, majoring in Glass with a minor in painting. She graduated in 2003 as the first Aboriginal student to graduate from the University of Adelaide with a major in Glass. Scarce went on to an Honours degree in 2004.[citation needed]

Academic career edit

Scarce furthered her academic career by participating in a masterclass at North Lands Creative Glass Centre in Scotland. She received a Women in Research Fellowship from Monash University, undertaking a Masters of Fine Arts in 2008.[3]

As of 2020 she is on the staff of the Centre of Visual Art, Victorian College of the Arts.[3]

Art works edit

Much of Scarce's glass work uses the murnong (yam daisy) as a recurring motif. She has travelled through Germany, Poland, Ukraine, the former Yugoslavian states, Japan and the United States, looking at the design of monuments and memorials, in particular those related to nuclear trauma, genocide, massacres, rebellions and war.[4]

Weak in Colour but Strong in Blood was exhibited at the 19th Biennale of Sydney at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2014. It featured glass yams alongside test tubes, arranged in a hospital-like setting.[4]

The work Thunder Raining Poison (2015), which deals with British and Commonwealth government nuclear testing at Maralinga in South Australia, featured in Defying Empire, the 3rd National Indigenous Art Triennial at the National Gallery of Australia in 2017.[5] Created from more than 2,000 hand-blown glass yams, it references the impact of the nuclear tests on local Aboriginal communities,[4] between 1955 and 1963.[6]

Remember Royalty (2018) features glass yams along with glass bush plums, in cases in front of photographs of the artist's family.[4]

For the 2019 National Gallery of Victoria Architecture Commission, Scarce created In Absence, in conjunction with Edition Office Architectural Studio. Set in the Grollo Equiset Garden at the NGV, this nine-metre high by ten-metre wide cylinder is clad in a dark-stained Tasmanian hardwood, and lined with hundreds of glass yams.[7]

In preparation for her work at the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art, In the Dead House, she examined the practices of "body-shoppers", who traded in whole or parts of dead bodies. The installation is mounted in the building formerly used as a morgue[4] by the Adelaide Lunatic Asylum[8] and later the Parkside Lunatic Asylum in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, now in the Adelaide Botanic Garden. Scottish physician William Ramsay Smith, who practised medicine at the Royal Adelaide Hospital in the early 1900s and used to sell body parts to international buyers, obtained some of his material from the morgue. Scarce also found that the practice of trading body parts continues today on the dark web, despite the advances in medical ethics, human rights and cultural heritage law and practices (including around the repatriation of human remains).[4] The theme of the Biennial is monsters, and Smith is the monster represented in Scarce's exhibit.[9]

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Scarce had been spending some time at the University of Birmingham researching Otto Frisch and Rudolf Peierls, the scientists who worked on developing nuclear bomb technology. She is planning to return to this in order to develop another artwork as a follow-up to Thunder Raining Poison.[4] Scarce works at the glass studio at JamFactory.[9]

Collections edit

Scarce has work in the following collections:

Exhibitions edit

Her work is included in the March 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of South Australia, which is titled "Monster Theatres".[14][15]

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Design & Art Australia Online".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  2. ^ a b c "2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Monster Theatres - Yhonnie Scarce". The Art Gallery of South Australia. Retrieved 2020-03-08.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. ^ a b c d e "Yhonnie Scarce". Centre of Visual Art. 2019-04-02. Retrieved 2020-03-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Clark, Maddee (2020-06-06). "Yhonnie Scarce's art of glass". The Saturday Paper. Retrieved 2020-06-06.
  5. ^ Scarce, Yhonnie. "Defying Empire". National Gallery of Australia. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  6. ^ Mittmann, J. D. (September 2017). "Maralinga: Aboriginal poison country". Agora. 52 (3): 25–31 – via Informit.
  7. ^ "In Absence: Yhonnie Scarce and Edition Office 2019 NGV Architecture Commission". NGV. Retrieved 2020-06-06.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  8. ^ "Adelaide Lunatic Asylum Morgue". WeekendNotes. 10 January 2014. Retrieved 14 June 2020.
  9. ^ a b Rice, Zoe (24 February 2020). "Facing demons in the 2020 Adelaide Biennial". SA Life. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  10. ^ "Death Zephyr, (2017) by Yhonnie Scarce". Art Gallery New South Wales. Retrieved 2020-03-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ^ "Scarce, Yhonnie". NGA collection search. Retrieved 2020-03-10.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ "Yhonnie Scarce | Artists | NGV". www.ngv.vic.gov.au. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  13. ^ a b c d e "Yhonnie Scarce - Exhbitions". Design & Art Australia Online. 2012. Archived from the original on 2020-03-10. Retrieved 2020-03-10.
  14. ^ Keen, Suzie (6 September 2019). "Monster 2020 Adelaide Biennial set to create a buzz". InDaily. Retrieved 6 September 2019.
  15. ^ Jefferson, Dee (5 April 2020). "The monsters under the bed: Exhibition reveals our worst nightmares are those closest to home". ABC News. Retrieved 5 April 2020.


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