Description:

Tiger Balm (2021) is an editorial project designed as a sincere and dignified articulation of Asian identity. Through the use of typography and illustration, the project explores how the intersections of language, body, heritage, and food pave my personal identity as a Chinese-Malaysian immigrant.

Outside of being hated, hunted, or objectified as a consumable culture, what is genuinely understood about the experience of being Asian? The opportunity to tell our stories as complicated individuals is an opportunity that is rarely given to us. Tiger Balm is a pursuit of honouring my culture while being honest – this meant telling the whole story; our successes, our shortcomings, and the visceral bits in-between. Many tensions were balanced in the design and story-telling of my project; to define my culture outside of racial trauma without excluding it, to represent the non-linearity of identity while delivering some sort of structure, and to show subjects in both dignity and vulnerability.

The editorial medium itself is a statement as well – it demands that the articulation of Asian identity deserves to take up space. As such, the project is produced as a tangible book of textured paper stock, hand-bound in an exposed kettle-stitch spine.

Tiger Balm is a declaration that Asian people deserve to tell our stories on our own terms; to tell people of our racial trauma, yes, but to be able to define ourselves outside of it as well. We deserve to be seen as more than objects or misconceptions; we deserve to be treated with wonder and empathy. We deserve dignity.