Tiger mothers, stressed kids and Asia schooling focus of new photo and video show
- Photographer Saskia Wesseling wants her art to make people realise the damage that piling academic pressure on children can do
- Her exhibition is on show in Shenzhen until December 9
Hong Kong-based Dutch photographer Saskia Wesseling is on a mission to tame the tiger mum.
A mother of two girls – Philine, 11 and June, 9 – Wesseling says she was feeling pressured into becoming a tiger mum herself and wanted to use her art to make people reconsider the roles of schooling in society.
“I felt trapped,” she says. “My concern is that by the time kids finish university they are exhausted and have lost all the passion and drive that you should have when you leave school and enter the workforce. We are just making anonymous children who are no longer individuals.”
With mentoring from Taiwanese photographer Chien-Chi Chang, Wesseling created a multimedia exhibition with video and photography.
Many of the images show children with books over their faces. “This was to show that it was not their choice, that the books were pushed into their face.”
