A Silkworm's Dreams Weave A Rhyme

In this project, I created a narrative of life, body, and labour with silkworms and women. To reveal those hidden and almost forgotten stories.

Since ancient times, the silkworm has been seen as a divine insect. Its life cycle of spinning, cocooning, and transformation resonates with women’s traditionally perceived roles of breeding, and childbearing. Women have been closely connected with the silk industry since the myth of the Silkworm Goddess. But behind this romantic myth, women were disciplined into a form of silent labour, and their bodies and the value of their work were obscured under patriarchy. This inspired my exploration of female embodied experiences.

I have travelled to many places for the project. In doing so, I found that rapid industrialisation had gradually replaced the inheritance of handicraft, and many women’s stories of labour had been buried, leaving only fragments of memory and metaphor. After visiting the craftswomen who still dedicate themselves to the sericultural industry over several decades, I started thinking about how female labourers find their own identity and place. How these women pass on this spiritual power, and how narratives sidelined by power and industry changes can regain attention.

I employed photography, collage, and overlaid fabric, textile and sewing as a means of “reconstruction”. Through these works, I resurfaced those individual narratives hidden under the wave of industrialisation. I wove tradition, reality, and imagination to reveal these hidden and almost-forgotten stories.