Excerpt from Inward Gazes: Documentaries of Chinese Performance Art 2012, The Macao Museum of Art, Macau S.A.R., 2012, p. 52: 'The Hartford Girl and Other Stories explores not only the perception and imagery of the body, but also the tension of the artist's dualistic state of being when under physical endangerment or distress. In The Hartford Girl and Other Stories, the artist investigates the theme of the felt experience of the body. She brings her focus to the spectrum of self-mutilation practices in contemporary culture, and the complexities of meaning that reside within the body and the psyche. The work is a multilayered, allegorical narrative documenting the intensive process of creating the complex, inkless tattoo, which is composed of 39 lines or 'slashes' of text written freehand on the artist's back. The tattoo refers to the biblical account of the number of lashes received by Jesus prior to his crucifixion. The literal narratives in both the tattoo and the video are collages created by the artist, one consisting of fragments of prayers and the other of juxtaposed 'clips' of real and fictional experiences, song lyrics, news reports, and random facts. The visual and literal 'stories' of prayer, pain, self-expression, desperation, and detachment being told in the present work exist on many levels of encounter, and are expressed through the interlacing of the video image and the spoken narrative.'