Although some artists in this show delve into feminist subject matter, most present works exploring social and global issues not necessarily from a female-only point of view. Women's Work shows that, when exhibited together, a body of works by female artists can make a powerful statement.

Featured are works by artists based on the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan: Cai Jin, Cheang Shulea, Chen Xiaodan, Doris Wong Wai-yin, Eva Chan, Geng Xue, Ivy Ma, Jaffa Lam Laam, Lam Wai-kit, Sara Tse, Siy Tak-yin, Sun Guojuan, Suzy Cheung Kai-sun and Yuk King Tan.

They show that art by women has evolved beyond depicting primarily the 'female experience', as its curatorial team - made up of Christopher Lau, Evangelo Costadimas and Isabel Ching - explains. 'We presented an open-ended question to the artists. We asked what kind of work they would include in an all-female show and then let them present their ideas and creations. As a result the show is more of a survey and a dialogue,' says Lau.

Costadimas adds that many of the artists do look within themselves for inspiration. 'However, through a broad spectrum of displays, Women's Work shows that many are also motivated by socially and politically inspired subjects.'

Ching says the curatorial team didn't want a show that dealt with 'women's issues' only. 'We wanted to show that female artists are concerned about many different issues through many perspectives,' she says.

The collection presents artists in different stages of development as creative and social thinkers, through a wide range of approaches and media such as installations, two- and three-dimensional pieces, multimedia, videos and photographic prints.

Tse's intensely personal works show both pleasure and pain. In Little White IV, she created a porcelain shell as a memorial to a beloved childhood pet. The image of the rabbit, cocooned and shrouded in eerie white, awakens not only happy memories but also a sense of loss.

'The rabbit is my story. I loved this rabbit. I fed him. I took care of him. Then he died,' says Tse. 'During the process of making this, I recalled precious moments. I make each object to keep my memories. Having lost something makes those memories more poignant.'

Constructing one's identity within societal expectations is the primary theme in Lam Wai-kit's dream-like images. She shows the travails of trying to fit into a foreign culture in The Forgotten Land, a series of prints accompanied by a multimedia display inspired by her experiences living abroad.

'When I arrived in the 'forgotten land', I lost myself. There was confusion from having to bridge different languages and adapting to a different culture. I wondered how I should present myself to others. I was aware that 'identity' is not just being yourself, but that identity is also constructed by society's expectation of you,' says Lam.

'In Hong Kong, society doesn't require you to dress pretty, but in Italy it is a requirement. There are specific roles and expectations. A woman must be a woman.'

In Desire, Siy critiques societal expectations and their damaging effect on those who have been conditioned to accept them without question.

Siy spent two years creating more than 3,000 cloth dolls depicting boys swarming sperm-like towards two mute figures, one of a female and the other a small child.

She expanded the installation through successive exhibitions to translate a long-held Chinese social expectation - that a women must bear sons - into art.

In Desire, the happy smiling boys overwhelm the female figure.

'In the installation, the figure is silent because she is unhappy. She is in pain,' Siy says. 'She cannot express her feelings and is constrained by long-held traditions and concepts.'

The work concerns the artist's own grandmother - her desperate desire to have a son and her anguish when she failed and her husband left her to marry another woman.

'My mother also had this desire. She wanted to have at least one son. I wanted to understand why there was this pressure and why it is still happening in today's world,' says Siy.

Tan, for her part, highlights the disparity between the rich and the poor. In her video presentation, Scavenger, a Hong Kong woman is featured pushing a laser-cut cardboard replica of an 'HSBC lion' from Central to Sheung Wan.

A video shows a series of fascinating encounters with people who are disturbed by the idea of the lion being pushed around by the old woman. The video concludes at the end of the woman's work day, when she is paid for her load of cardboard.

'This work is about our struggle to make a living. I find it disturbing that there are many elderly Hong Kong people still, mostly women, who have to collect cardboard and newspapers to make money,' Tan says.

Asked if being a woman helped her to take a more sympathetic view of the female scavenger, Tan says: 'Being a 'female' artist is just a label. I am a woman from a certain country, born of a certain age and this will affect the work that I do.

'The more pertinent question for me is how my identity as a person affects what I say about society and the questions I pose through my artwork.'

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