“There’s often pressure from publishing to tell a particular kind of Asian or immigrant story, but I wanted to show an ambivalence to the specific culture I came out of. In some respects I'm proud of it, and in others, it stifled who I actually was. How do we sit with that?”
Read More“We're trying to sell books, because that makes everyone happy: the people in the company, the author, the audience. You have to respect that context. It's not about me.”
Read More“I take risks because there is nothing to lose. Writers who are too precious about their public image will only decline into a reproduction of themselves.”
Read More‘Positionality is crucial. You cannot ignore who you are, where you are situated and come from, and what you bring to the table in the cultural and creative sector.’
Read More‘When I land on the right words to describe what I want to understand and/or convey, it is like a burst of colour, an incredible “a-ha” moment and feeling of peaceful validation, because when the words exist, our experiences seem all the more real.’
Read More‘Finding solidarity in political purpose with fellow Asian Australians is a constant gift.’
Read More“Whinging and crying that you can make the same dish at home for $6 and that paying $28 is expensive is so misguided, and prevents any sort of progress in hospitality. If the industry could offer better wages, we could hire more staff, and people wouldn’t have to work 60+ hour weeks at minimum wage.”
Read More‘My advice is to keep your heart open, but find that balance to not spread yourself thin, so that you don’t burn out.’
Read More‘Labour is definitely an important part of my work, and the process of refining something, making something from raw, or from “nothing”.’
Read More‘I made most of my friends online. It means a lot to me to have an online space to be yourself, chill out with people, muck around and make jokes. There’s been lots of attempts to make professional versions of those spaces in the past year, but I find them boring.’
Read More‘I make the work I do in order to combat needless disenchantments. So much of history shows how the things we’re capable of now could be considered as myth becoming realised. That’s just as powerful now, no? Let’s re-enchant the world!’
Read More‘That's the essence of de-centring whiteness in our narratives, it’s about moving away from whiteness as being the ‘norm’ and transferring power to our communities through platforming and amplifying our stories and narratives.’
Read More‘Poetry is history, it is contemporary politics, it is religion, and it is popular culture. To me, poetry has always been the people’s literature.’
Read More‘But essentially space is also land. I think that’s where I contest this differentiation between ‘IRL and URL’ digital and physical space. They aren’t separate. There’s no third space that we occupy online.'
Read More‘I love working with materials that have had a life—that have memories and histories that I can intervene in or alter.’
Read More‘For so long, art criticism has been seen as this hermetically sealed bubble, propped up by old white men and their faux-universal perspectives and I love— and feel encouraged by—people thinking and writing about art as if it’s something with real stakes.’
Read More‘In this community of just you and me, you have helped me heal in many ways.’
Read More‘This is a question I am constantly asking myself. Why poetry? Why writing at all?’
Read More‘We put a lot of pressure on ourselves as artists of colour, to have concept-driven and culturally sensitive work—but you know, sometimes I just want to take beautiful photos that aren’t conceptually dense, that are simply nice to look at.’
Read More‘We lose nothing, and gain everything, by ensuring voices of minority groups are represented in food media.’
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