With a background in cultural insights, futures and strategy I strive to re-imagine systems and structures to address our impact on the world. I’ve worked across multiple sectors in content & reporting as well as with some of the world’s best known brands delivering creative strategy, sustainability strategy, cultural insights, trend forecasting and futures. As a Lecturer at London College of Fashion on BA (hons) Creative Direction for Fashion, I lead on cultural insights, futures, creative strategy and visual culture.

Growing up on a farm with a Cantonese mother and white-British father, my world was not as coherent as a lot of my peers and cultural dissonance in our household was the norm. This combined with not belonging to either of my extended families, as well as within rural life, posed challenges that have shaped who I am, developing unique skills in understanding people and different perspectives. Culture, identity, community and celebrating being different are central to everything I do. Addressing inequalities, inclusion and assessing our bias in both personal and professional spheres, are all also really important to me.

Co-founding ESEA Green Lions in 2022, brought many strands of my identity and ikigai together, and my belief in contributing to change through one’s locality, sphere of influence, skills and resources. The collective is a space for East and South East Asian (ESEA) people to convene, connect, and organise for a more equitable and climate just world through a creative lens, and is engaged in a number of projects including the recent Nature KwenTour: Co-creating Solarpunk Futures, which I’m Project Leading and with which we won the British Council bid for the Connections Through Culture 2024 grant. The project is a partnership between ESEA Green Lions and Lokal Lab, (an NGO focused on sustainable community development in Siargao, Philippines) aiming to draw on the skills, knowledge, network and reach of both partners to address the challenges of exclusion and disconnection from ecosystems, and disintegration of local knowledge. To do this the project explores plant mapping in London & Siargao, and the creative and world-building potential at the intersection of creative technologies, indigenous knowledge, and island-urban exchange between the tropical island of Siargao, Philippines and London, UK. Additionally, we address the technological and creative opportunities needed for local youth, amplifying ESEA voices in the climate discourse, and envisioning regenerative ecological futures through island-urban dialogues.

Performing and producing music under the pseudonym ï𝛞𝒙𝖎, I’m also a DJ, curator and co-host of syncop8 on Subtle and the ESEA (East & South East Asian) Sisters show on Voices radio spotlighting emerging talent across the diaspora and beyond. With experimental and club roots, ixxi plays percussive club, electro, bass, breaks, jungle and everything in between - drawing on a love of percussion. Graduating from the first cohort of DJ workshops run by Voices Radio in 2023, I returned to music after growing up playing instruments and running a micro festival outside Bristol. Curating and co-hosting the ESEA Sisters radio show on Voices Radio, we spotlight underrepresented voices and lesser known artists across the diaspora and motherlands. Recently starting syncop8 on Subtle radio with FEI exploring percussive electronica with a diverse background in music, we curate across styles and genres. I am also developing my producing skills, working at the intersections of eastern and western musical influences and percussion.

Running a music festival from an early age as well as co-founding an arts & culture zine, I’ve also worked in festival art direction and curation, and as a creative executive and graphic designer at a music, action sports and experiential marketing agency. Alongside working across many sectors of the fashion industry, my varied background has cultivated a fascination for culture, creativity and the intersections of visual media, fashion, technology, sound, science, art, critical thinking, climate and social issues. Taking all this in to my work as an interdisciplinary creative, I’m excited about the futures we can create.


@izzy.earth 
@ixxi.music