Dreams of a Solo Traveller constitutes a positive rethinking of the Chinese derogatory concept of 剩女 (the Leftover Woman). The study draws on personal experience and existing literature relating to familial and cultural expectations that many young, contemporary Chinese women must navigate. Using silk as a material substrate, the study explores the potentials of poetry, calligraphy, fabric design, illustration and printing to rethink existing conventions of gender expectation and culturally mandated marriage.
The study contributes to an existing body of qualitative commentary about the construct of the Leftover Woman, by providing an embodied, aspirationally framed, artistic analysis from first-person experience. The outcome demonstrates how communication design can be employed in a poetic manner to reach audiences who have hitherto been exposed to purely academically framed discourses on the subject.
