How was art important to you growing up? 

Art was everything to me as a child. I was completely absorbed in drawing and dreamt of becoming a painter for most of my early years. I would spend hours each day filling stacks of scrap paper that my mother brought home from work, lost in my own world of lines and colours. I was a fiercely competitive kid and took part in community drawing competitions almost every month, though I almost never won the big prizes. But that never really mattered. What stayed with me was the feeling of being seen—my creative inclinations were accepted and supported by my family. It was the time and space I was given to immerse myself in drawing that marked some of the happiest moments of my childhood. Those quiet hours shaped my sensitivity to colour and composition, which eventually found their voice through photography.

What motivates and inspires you? 

Some of the most memorable moments in my photography journey have happened while traveling. It was the urge to document my experience away from home that first pushed me to develop my craft and eventually led me to pursue this path professionally. Naturally, I feel most motivated and inspired when I’m in unfamiliar places, stepping into the role of an observer, taking in the spirit of a place and watching how people live, move through the world, and create meaning in ways that are often very different from my own. There is something profoundly moving about witnessing the universal tenacity of life—the way people adapt, persist, and continue to create beauty in the face of uncertainty throughout history. It reminds me of our shared resilience and how much there is still to be in awe of. That sense of discovery, and the human stories that live within each place, continue to keep me looking, learning, and creating.

What does neurodiversity mean to you?Does it affect you and/or your family’s life? And if so, how? 

To me, neurodiversity means thinking differently and having the courage to honour that difference, especially within cultures where conformity is closely tied to ideas of success, stability, and even virtue. I have a cousin who is neurodivergent but has never been formally diagnosed, largely because of cultural stigma and the reluctance to acknowledge and explore differences. In our community, there is often an unspoken pressure to keep anything unusual hidden or downplayed, which has left him and his family navigating their challenges with very little understanding or support. While I’m not neurodivergent myself and wouldn’t compare my experience directly to his, I recognise certain emotional parallels. I grew up in the same environment, where deviation from the expected path was quietly discouraged. My creative inclinations were accepted—so long as they stayed within the realm of play and leisure. When I was younger, this was enough. But as I reached my teenage years and the expectations around career and the future became more serious, it became clear that what I naturally gravitated toward wasn’t considered viable. I had no creative role models, no examples of a life where artistic work was taken seriously. That sense of internal conflict, of feeling something deeply but not seeing it mirrored or validated stayed with me. Over time, I’ve found ways to reclaim and commit to that path, even when it moves against the grain of what my culture defines as success. But witnessing how difference, whether neurological or creative, is often quietly resisted or erased has deepened my empathy. It’s made me more attuned to the ways people are asked to compromise who they are, and more determined to hold space for other ways of being in the world.

What would you like your artistic legacy to be? 

I’d like to be remembered as an artist who wasn’t afraid to trust her creative instincts, and who found ways to express herself earnestly and truthfully through her work. I want my images to reflect how I’ve experienced the world: its tensions, its textures, and the moments of grace that often go unnoticed. Part of that legacy lies in how I see. My work is shaped by the gaze of a woman of colour, informed by class, culture, and the complexities of the world as it is in our time. I hope to leave behind a body of work that reflects not just the world itself, but what the world revealed to someone like me, what it allowed me to witness, and what it sometimes withheld. That being said, I’m not concerned with being remembered beyond my lifetime. What matters more is that my work means something to those who encounter it now. In a time when images are constantly consumed amidst so much noise and stimulation online, I hope mine can offer a moment of stillness, a brief connection to the world as it is. Like sunlight, fleeting but felt, I hope my images remind others that even in passing moments, there is something worth noticing, and that to witness it is, in itself, a gift.

Do you have some new work to share? What is the story behind it? 

I recently visited China for the first time. As someone with Chinese diasporic roots, the experience was incredibly special and moving. I made this visit during a time when I felt lost and untethered to the city I had long called home. I didn’t go with a clear plan or project in mind, just a sincere hope that reconnecting with something older than myself might offer some kind of clarity. In line with my intuitive approach to image-making, I let myself move through the journey without expectation, staying open to what I might feel or find. So much of it felt unexpectedly familiar. There was a quiet sense of belonging, of feeling at home in a place I had never been before. The trip ended up restoring a sense of self and solidity within me that I hadn’t realised I’d been missing. What surprised me most were the waves of deep appreciation I felt for the beauty of my culture and heritage. It was emotionally affecting in ways I hadn’t anticipated, and that feeling has stayed with me. These images are not simply travel photographs from another journey. They mark the beginning of a new phase in my personal exploration of identity, memory, and ancestral connection—one that extends beyond my home country, Malaysia. In the gestures, rituals, and rhythms of everyday life there, I recognised what I had once thought were idiosyncrasies of my grandparents, my parents, even my own childhood. To see those ways of being embodied by people in this land was a revelation. It helped me understand just how much of who we are is shaped by inherited memory, and how the connection to an ancestral home can remain intact, even across generations and distance.