From the Edges — Woven Silence – By Qianying Li from Auckland University of Technology, AUT
In our ‘From The Edges’ series we feature Aotearoa NZ Academic Design Projects. Our practice as designers can be seen to be explored, pushed and perhaps become something entirely new where it exists at the edges of our practice in the world of academia. Free from the constraints of commercial outcomes and clients, designers explore and challenge existing paradigms.
In this article, we talk with Qianying Li about her PhD research project on ‘Woven Silence’.
Talk to us about your background in design and the path you took to get where you are now?
I am from a small city in southwest China named Nanchong. Because my parents valued education and supported my ambition, I had the opportunity to study in New Zealand. This year marks my tenth year in Auckland. I started at AUT as a student , and became a PhD researcher and creative practitioner here.
During my undergraduate studies, I began combining poetry with visual communication design, exploring the relationship between poem and image. During the COVID-19 pandemic, I became stranded in China after an international exchange programme. The repeated periods of isolation between China and New Zealand led me to think about how design could carry personal narratives and social experience.
After completing my undergraduate and master’s studies, I gradually realised that conversations about age, marriage, and childbirth were increasingly common at family gatherings and in everyday interactions. I was living what they call 剩女/ Shèng Nü (leftover women), and that pressure became the heart of my creative work, explored through poetry, image-making, and silk.
I am currently undertaking a practice-led PhD at AUT, using the Chinese concept of 变通 / Bian Tong (adaptive-transformative thinking) as a creative strategy to explore the relationship between women, culture, and society.
*Bian Tong emphasises understanding and responding to change and adjusting actions according to shifting circumstances.
Who is your favourite designer/creative/artist and why?
There are many artists and creatives I admire, but the person who has influenced me most is the Tang dynasty poet and painter Wang Wei (王维, 699–759 CE). Although almost none of Wang Wei’s original paintings survive, the Song dynasty poet Su Shi famously said that Wang Wei put painting into his poetry and poetry into his painting. This fusion became central to Chinese literati painting.
What attracts me is this understanding of poetry and painting as interconnected forms of expression. Through Wang Wei’s influence, I began to see creative practice as a space for emotional exchange, reflection on society, and thought.
This relationship between poetry and image continues to shape my practice. Sometimes a poem changes the direction of an image, while at other times an image leads me back to rewriting the poem itself. For me, there is a tension between text and image that continually pushes them further apart.
What goals and aspirations do you have for the future?
In the future, I hope to continue creating work from a female designer’s perspective, focusing on gender roles and women’s experiences in contemporary China while integrating traditional Chinese thought into design practice.
Through years of cross-cultural study, I have become increasingly aware that many understandings of Chinese culture and Chinese women are shaped by stereotypes. Many times, when I tried to explain the term 剩女/ leftover women to Western friends, I realised how different their understanding was from the realities of the Chinese social context.
I hope my work makes the experience of 剩女/ leftover women tangible for people who haven’t lived it, creating understanding across cultural boundaries. I want my work to make the 剩女/ leftover women experience real for people who haven’t lived it, and accessible to audiences across cultures. Design, for me, is about creating dialogue that crosses boundaries.
When did you first learn about your area of specialty? What about it piqued your interest?
I first became interested in combining poetry and visual practice during a university project in my second year of undergraduate study. It began as a small experiment, but it unexpectedly changed the direction of my creative practice.
English is not my first language, and as an international student, I often felt I had to constantly overcome language barriers. I found it difficult to communicate complex emotions and experiences entirely through English, and equally difficult to make others fully understand what I was trying to express.
I gradually realised that some emotions which were difficult to express directly became easier to communicate once they were written as poetry and translated into images. The ambiguity and metaphor within poetry also created a tension with the directness of visual language.
Since then, the relationship between poetry and image has remained central to my practice
What’s the background of your current project?
My PhD project explores the experiences of leftover women in contemporary China. The project is being developed through three installation series, using image-making and poetry on silk as its primary media.
In both public discourse and media representation, the label of leftover women is often tied to the stigmatisation of women and framed through gender opposition. Rather than responding through confrontation, I wanted to approach the subject more subtly through poetry, images, and materials.
My generation of Chinese women is the first generation to experience greater access to higher education and independent careers on a larger scale. I grew up watching more women gain education, careers, and independence, while traditional expectations surrounding marriage and femininity often remained unchanged. This tension gradually became the foundation of the project.
While the phenomenon of leftover women has been discussed within sociology and media studies, it remains relatively underexplored within art and design practice. Through this project, I hope to create a softer yet still critical approach to the subject.
What were the catalysts/inspirations for undertaking post-grad and this particular project?
Before beginning my master’s degree, I was not entirely sure what I truly wanted to pursue. Postgraduate study gave me the space to continue exploring, while Dreams of a Solo Traveller was the project that helped me recognise a clear direction within my practice.
Choosing to continue into a PhD was because I gradually became certain about the questions I wanted to keep investigating.
The topic of leftover women emerged from personal experience. One summer a few years ago, I reunited with close friends I had known for years. We found ourselves discussing how, as unmarried and childless women of a certain age, we had already begun planning for retirement on our own. It was a real conversation about our lives.
Living and studying in the West led me to reconsider many of these expectations from a different perspective. This contrast between cultures prompted me to ask what kinds of social and gendered pressures contemporary educated Chinese women are currently navigating.
What insight can you give us into your design process?
My research is practice-led, and the idea of Bian Tong has gradually become a way of working within my creative process.
Usually, I begin with poetry and then translate the poems into ink-based imagery and visual work. However, the process is never fixed. Sometimes I write many poems but still cannot find a way into the visual work; at other times, a trace within an ink painting leads me back to language. When one direction no longer works, I change approach: I move into image-making first and then return to poetry through the visual process.
Over time, this ongoing process of adjustment and transition gradually became the way I work within the project. It is influenced by Chinese ideas of change, timing, and adaptability found within texts such as the 易经/Yijing, 鬼谷子/Guiguzi, and 孙子兵法/The Art of War.
Through your post-grad research have you made any interesting or unexpected discoveries or insights that you can share with us?
Before beginning this research, I had never seriously considered silk as a creative material, even though I was born in a city with a thousand-year history of silk production.
Over time, I realised that silk does not simply function as a surface for images. It also changes how viewers approach the work itself. Compared with canvas or paper, silk offers a softer, more indirect approach to the subject. When viewers encounter the texture of silk, they are already entering a particular perceptual state, and that state itself becomes part of what the work communicates.
This led me to reconsider the role of material within my practice: materials participate in storytelling.
What has been the most challenging part of your research thus far? How did you overcome it, or are you still working to resolve it?
One of the biggest challenges within my research is that many of its core ideas are rooted in specific Chinese cultural and linguistic contexts, making them difficult to translate directly.
In many cases, there are no exact English equivalents for these concepts. Even my own poetry exists in both Chinese and English versions, yet the two can never fully mirror one another.
At first, I kept trying to find an accurate translation. Over time, however, complete equivalence may not actually be the goal. I became more interested in whether they could carry similar emotions and experiences.
How has post-grad study impacted your design practice?
Before postgraduate study, my practice relied on intuition and aesthetic judgement.
Practice-led research training encouraged me to think systematically about the relationship between design, knowledge, and creative practice. Over time, I developed a clearer understanding of research methods, knowledge production, and the role of process within creative work.
Intuition is no longer the only basis for decision-making. Research training taught me to pause and ask why I make certain decisions.
Why did you choose this particular program/university/qualification?
After nearly ten years of study in New Zealand, AUT has become connected to both my academic and personal growth.
During the pandemic, when border closures prevented me from returning to New Zealand, my supervisors and the international office remained in contact with me and helped me find ways to continue my studies. My supervisors consistently believed in my potential as a researcher and creative practitioner, even during periods when I was least certain of it myself. That support meant a great deal to me.
At the same time, AUT has given me a high degree of creative freedom, allowing me to explore a research direction that belongs to my practice and personal interests. Living and studying between two cultures has also allowed me to reconsider my cultural background from different perspectives.
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