The book "The love letters of a Chinese lady" was privately published in Edinburgh in 1917

The "lady" was Lui Kwei-li, a 19th Century Chinese woman living in the ancestral home of her husband, high on the mountain-side outside the city of Su-Chau.

Kwei-li is 18 years old, and in the first years of her marriage when her husband is required to accompany Prince Chang on a diplomatic mission overseas. A selection of the letters she wrote to him are contained in this suite of photograms. Of course it was quite extraordinary that she could read and write - and she outraged her mother in law by doing so. Education in a woman was not seen as desirable. As a child Kwei-li had been taught these skills, alongside her brothers, and one can only assume Kwei-li's father was a very enlightened person.

Kwei-li was a highly intelligent and compassionate woman, and her observations of life - from domestic to spiritual - are as relevant today in the year 2002, as they were when written.

I have selected 9 of these letters and present them as a text panel and an image panel. Chinese stamps have been used in conjunction with the letters and on some of the image panels. I have used the photogram technique - ie placing an object directly onto photographic paper and exposing it to light. A camera is not used. Film is not used. Each image is unique and cannot be reproduced.

Some of the letters have been translated back into the original Mandarin, and these symbols have been integrated into the imagery.