Since the overall theme of the minor is ‘embodiment’, we talked a lot about the personal experiences of each student.
Since I like to keep a certain distance from my personal work,
the challenge was going to be to participate fully without losing myself in the work.

Most of my work starts out of a personal interest or fascination.
This could be a personal ‘issue’ (I’ll call it an issue, even though I hate that word because of the negative connotation), even though I don’t like to make work personal.

When I work from out of a personal issue, I dive into the core of it for the bigger,
deeper and more universal problem within this issue to create it more meta.
This is my way to create distance from my work,
but also because I make the best work when there is a problem to be solved.


In my work, I try to create a bridge between different cultures and perspectives, because I believe a broader horizon and more understanding of different thoughts can prevent a lot of issues within the world, especially within the Cultural Diversity-context.
I believe, as an Advertiser/ Creative/ Storyteller (or whatever fancy name people call it these days), we have the power (I said it) to give unheard voices a microphone or create the stage for people and hidden issues to stand on.

I believe my perspective is my greatest strength as a creative.
I position myself as a bicultural creative since I was born and raised as a Chinese at home,
but I grew up in a Dutch environment with Dutch schools and friends.

From when I was a child, I got confronted by these two whole different worlds and manoeuvring myself to adapt to them. That’s why I am trained to see every topic and issue from a wider perspective because I have lived my life as a helicopter floating between two different worlds. I had a cultural shock in the best way possible, which leads to my ability to have a unique helicopter view of the world.

Within the context of the Cultural Diversity minor, I wanted to step out of my comfort zone of keeping a distance in my work, and deconstruct my ‘being’ so I could find an interesting topic to work on.
Easier said than done because once I started to think about who I am, what my body is, and put myself in the ‘boxes’ of the minor, I got a bit lost. (In Dutch: I didn’t saw the forest anymore because of all the trees)

As an Asian lesbian growing up in a white environment, there are a lot of topics within this minor that really stroke my attention and I wanted to research on meta-level.