This practice-led artistic research draws on the historical, literary convention of the 羁旅 (exile), to consider the potential of a fictional 旅行皮箱 (portmanteau) to speak to the experience of loss and disorientation experienced by a Chinese student studying overseas.

The study employs close reading, iterative poetic practice and iterative experimentation to design artefacts that communicate intimate experiences that one might experience as a foreigner studying and living abroad. At the centre of the study is the creation of a fictional portmanteau that belongs to an imaginary student who is emotionally, culturally and physically stranded (in exile) in a country far away from her homeland. The portmanteau constitutes a repository of ephemera but also a form of narrative portrait.