Last week, eyes coated in hot pink and armed with three Barbies and one Ken, I became a part of the pink-cladded audience to watch Greta Gerwig’s highly anticipated. After all the intense marketing from the franchise that included Architectural Digest’s coverage of the captivating Barbie set to the two hundred plus Barbie Pink collaborated everyday products – I was anticipating that this movie would rewrite Barbie’s political rhetoric that has continually evolved. However, I later found myself watching the film but with exhaustion…
Read MoreI won’t deny that this year has had its various ups and downs. What felt like a year that was filled with starts and stops also felt like a year of wandering through a blanket of haze. There would be days when I wish time would slow down for me, and there would be days where I resented the slowness of time. I watched people whom I admire opening themselves to another avenue, while I am asking myself whether I am demanding enough to meet the expectations of myself at work. The dynamic of spectating others and their growth while struggling to witness my own was distinguishable – added the internal reviews asking me whether I am getting what I want in a relatively mentally fatiqued state made me wonder if I felt satisfied from those discussions after all.
Read MoreThe space was filled with a complete minute of silence when my colleague posed this question to me. Having giddily shared my freelance writing during idle moments at work, my colleague humoured me with a challenging prompt. To choose between writing or architecture initially felt like a demand to choose my favourite child…
Read MoreIt's an exhausting and ongoing cry for journalism when it comes to the treatment and portrayal of women in the eyes of men. So I would like to share with you a rant that I’ve had with my friends three years ago – one I was terrified of sharing publicly but now feel confident in sharing now.
Read MoreFor a K-Pop enthusiast who was first introduced to Girls’ Generation (SNSD), I thought it’d be fitting to write about SNSD’s comeback video. After all – who wouldn’t like to celebrate and reminisce on some of their highlights while sneaking in a tiny review of my thoughts on this glittery video?
Read MoreRecently, during a lunch discussion about an architecture the architects was reviewing, I raised sarcastic laughs from them when I absent-mindedly asked if their review was a ‘glowing one’. In the landscape of Architecture media, or media in Australia – in which defamation cases can receive severe punishments, there is a semi-walking-on-eggshells feeling when it comes to leaving your opinions about something you’re not particularly fond of. Where reviews are often a poetic description and capturing of the project, and critique is perceived to be dragging the project through the mud, the opinion piece becomes difficult to distinguish whether it’s a review or a constructive critique.
Read MoreI think I’ve spoken quite publicly about the fatigue that washed over me while I taught architecture online two years ago (my my how time flies). While we are in an age in that grants us various ways to connect in a digital replica of a studio, the lack of interaction among the students without the occasional dialogue of ‘no you speak first’ has really diminished the support system for architecture students (or any students let’s be honest). More importantly, watching hopeful eyes slowly lose their shine has been difficult to watch. Where we’ve been conditioned to learn physically (and also understand the importance of in-person engagement), the digital studio culture has severed that liveliness often bubbling from the physical classroom.
Read MoreIt’s been a while since I’ve written here.
It’s also been a while since I’ve written another reflection piece for the public to read as well. (Currently I’m trying to rest my shaky hands because I was so close in winning in Hades - but unfortunately, I lost at the very last minute!)
Evidently, this year hasn’t been the smoothest for many of us - especially for those who’ve been jostled by the ins and outs of lockdown restrictions and being confronted with uncertainty that has been magnified more and more by the curveballs that we’re faced with everyday.
Read MoreI came across film photography near the end of my secondary studies. At that point, while I was still aspiring to be a costume designer (possibly for the Australian Ballet), my friend had introduced me to the mechanics of film photography. Added with film portrayals of people taking their analogue SLR’s and reading Susie Salmon* taking that photo of her mother in the morning - I slowly dreamed about obtaining these mechanical wonders someday.
It would be right before I decided to move to Hong Kong for my first job that film (or 35mm) would properly cement itself as my constant hobby. After an impulse decision to visit Hong Kong as a graduation trip, I took my family’s latest point and shoot with me and dragged my friend to Choi Hung Estate to fulfil that particular Instagram Photo. It didn’t take long for me to become enamoured with the process, and soon after working in my first job in my hometown - and after the hasty purchase of my trusty Canon Ae-1, as well as constantly being asked to get out of the house to explore what the neon city has to offer, it didn’t take long for it to become my preferred photography method.
Read MoreAfter the podcast with Adrian on architecture and film, as well as being a 35mm analogue enthusiast, my friend and I found ourselves on a weeknight sardined among eager film enthusiasts (or HK enthusiasts) to watch the critically acclaimed In the Mood for Love (2000). A quick synopsis: In The Mood For Love is about two characters Su Li-zhen (played elegantly by Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan (played by Tony Leung, very handsome might I add) who have come together after discovering their respective partners are having an affair with each other. Already a well-known film and being partially aware of the ending (heck they already give you written spoilers at the very beginning), I wasn’t confident in how I would feel about watching two isolated souls would make me feel. My friend, who also shared a similar sentiment decided that we would become each other’s anchor throughout the narrative.
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