For greater than two years, Chinese language tattoo artist Music Jiayin has interviewed her feminine shoppers and posted the outcomes on-line, recording the reminiscences, hopes and fears of tons of of girls in ink and video.
Her designs - from a sundown to a gently stylised uterus and pictures of beloved pets - are as assorted as the ladies's motivations for getting them etched on their our bodies.
In a rustic the place areas for feminine self-expression have shrunk in recent times, getting a tattoo can really feel like an empowering act.
"Whenever you select to get tattooed and select a distinct picture to place in your physique, you might be really taking motion to say, I management my physique," mentioned Music.
China's Communist Occasion has lengthy exercised management over ladies's our bodies by way of coercive reproductive laws, such because the now-abandoned one-child coverage.
Beneath President Xi Jinping, authorities have cracked down on virtually each type of feminist activism, limiting NGOs, arresting high-profile figures, and suspending social media accounts.
Conservative attitudes valuing ladies primarily for his or her look and childbearing stay the norm, bolstered by state media and in style tradition.
Music, who describes herself as a feminist, sees her venture as an open-ended documentary that she hopes will assist each promote ladies's voices and problem stereotypes.
"I wish to give (ladies) an even bigger platform for extra individuals to see what they specific," she mentioned.
The "1,000 Ladies" movies all persist with a easy format - they begin off with an ice-breaker: "What's your zodiac signal?"
However within the conversations that comply with, interviewees share intimate ideas about psychological well being, gender, anxieties about rising older, and the deaths of family members.
'Worst type' of sexism
Inside Music's book-filled studio final month, 27-year-old Liao Jingyi was excited to develop into part of the venture -- and obtain her first-ever tattoo.
Mendacity on the tattoo desk along with her denims rolled up on one facet, Liao braced herself because the needle moved over her pores and skin, and the outlines of crashing waves and a boulder step by step took form on her calf.
She mentioned she was impressed by a professor she seemed as much as at college, who advised her to be like a "rock whose edges haven't been worn down".
Whereas tattoos usually are not unusual in China's extra cosmopolitan and wealthier areas, ladies particularly nonetheless face scrutiny over their look.
Getting inked, or not conforming to conventional kinds, is frowned upon in conservative circles.
The latest suicide of a younger girl who turned the goal of misogynistic on-line abuse after posting a photograph of herself with pink hair spotlighted the extreme stress ladies can face.
"When a lady does not conform, she will get attacked and her morality will get questioned... It's sexism, rooted in gender inequality, in its worst type," author and social commentator Lijia Zhang advised AFP.
Defying disapproval
One consumer, a lady in her 30s who selected to be tattooed with rainbow motifs, mentioned she had wished to get inked as a youthful girl however her boyfriend had threatened to interrupt up along with her.
One other girl, a health care provider who requested for a design based mostly on her grandparents' purple hydrangeas, mentioned that at her hospital many sufferers would really feel a tattooed physician "does not appear to be accountable sufficient".
Music mentioned she was particularly moved by a lady in her 40s who had are available for her first tattoo.
Music recalled the girl asking: "I've been a mom, a spouse, now can I be myself and get a tattoo of no matter I would like?"
Damaged chain
One in every of Music's personal tattoos close to her elbow stands out particularly.
It depicts a damaged chain as a tribute to Xiaohuamei, a lady who was discovered trapped in a shack in rural China with a sequence and padlock round her neck final 12 months.
Regarded as a sufferer of human trafficking, information of her plight despatched shockwaves all through the nation.
A number of shoppers have requested for a similar tattoo.
"I believe any girl seeing this, together with her being compelled to have eight youngsters, would really feel immense heartache," Music mentioned.
"I believe we now have struggled for too lengthy. This wrestle for ladies to achieve rights has gone on for too lengthy."