Another piece, which aims to raise public awareness of the environment, is Chun Fen (Spring Equinox), featuring real, cracked earth mounted on silk. Within the soil, she embedded clipped thread ends and gold dust. A single embroidered seed sprouts from the textured surface, accompanied by two tiny ladybugs — a tribute to agrarian life, renewal, and scientist Yuan Longping, known as the father of hybrid rice.

"I wanted to stitch upon the earth itself to make people feel that embroidery can connect with the soil," she says. The piece helps break the stereotype about Su embroidery as a rarefied, untouchable art.

In addition to innovation, Zou devoted years of her life to resurrecting the pizhen stitch (split needle stitch), a technique once vital to Silk Road textiles but lost to time.

"I was young and could still travel, so I took my needle and thread and learned from the ancients all over again," she says. Her mission was to "bring it back to life and tell its story".