The Day Miao Embroidery Lit Up Times Square（2019年的某一天，苗绣站上了世界的中心）

In February 2019, I brought Miao embroidery to New York—not just as a craft, but as a civilizational presence. For the first time, it appeared on the NASDAQ screen in Times Square, where one of the world’s brightest stages met one of its most overlooked cultures.

What flashed wasn’t just a decorative pattern, but a language of meaning—visual philosophy, cosmology, and ancestral memory stitched into thread.

I remember writing: “Miao embroidery is one of the world’s most unique textile arts. It encodes philosophical cognition and carries the genetic memory of human civilization.”

To me, this wasn’t a moment of marketing—it was an act of reclamation. Miao embroidery deserves to stand in the light. It has long been hidden, misunderstood, and sidelined. But it never lost its voice. It has only been waiting for someone to listen.

That day, I simply wanted the world to see it for what it truly is.

2019年2月，我将苗绣带到了纽约——不仅是文化的远行，更是一次文明的出场。 那一天，苗绣第一次登上了纽约时代广场的纳斯达克大屏。无数人在这个世界最亮的地方，看到一个来自中国山地文明的古老图案：它不为装饰而存在，而是承载着关于宇宙、生命与精神秩序的视觉哲学。

我记得当时写下这样一句话： “苗绣是世界上最为独特的刺绣，它是用刺绣表达的哲学认知，蕴含人类文明缘起的基因密码。”

对我而言，这不是展示，是一次历史的拨正。 苗绣值得站在光中。过去，它一直被忽略、被误解，甚至被边缘化。 但它从来没有失语，它只是等待一个能够读懂它的人。

那一天，我想让世界看到它真正的样子。

Editor’s Note: This article reflects Zeng Li’s personal and cultural act of reclamation. In a global context often dominated by Western visual systems, her decision to bring Miao embroidery to Times Square was not about spectacle—it was a sovereign gesture from a non-Western world. It wasn’t a campaign, but a quiet correction. In the language of curatorship, this is what it means to shift the center—to let an ancient, overlooked visual civilization speak for itself, in its own rhythm, under its own light.