Ladies' Room 洗手间 (2000) Favorite 

Ladies’ Room, lasting fewer than six and a half minutes, offers a behind-the-scenes look at a women’s washroom in a nightclub located in a Beijing hotel. A male patron of Cui Xiuwen’s studio first took her there, and she acknowledges being drawn to the ladies’ room precisely because her host did not have access to it. The artist’s video presents a seemingly authentic vision of the habitués of this semi-private space: numerous sex workers, each attired in a way that suggests her individuality, and a series of women attendants who wear the uniform of a
modest white jacket.

Cui Xiuwen shot her footage with a hidden Betacam recorder held at a low angle, generally standing to one side of her busy subjects, and then edited it to present similar scenes together.
The video begins with a half minute of silent images of women unwinding rolls of pink tissue, establishing the setting and simultaneously evoking spools of videotape. Following this, almost four minutes of material, set to music, shows women looking into the washroom’s prominent mirror. The artist interrupts this segment with a momentary glimpse of the club’s dance floor, and afterward, the video becomes more invasive, with views of women adjusting their bras or undressing. As the music fades, the focus shifts to vignettes of women talking on mobile phones (with both Chinese and English subtitles provided): arranging meetings with men, arguing, or discussing their own circumstances; these clips last for almost a minute. The conclusion features over a minute of images of women counting money—which crackles audibly in their hands—then concealing it in their clothes.