Sun Ho Lee designs the ephemeral experiences of cultural “inbetweeners”

Through her multi-disciplinary practice, the designer Sun Ho Lee highlights the experience of the people she describes as “cultural inbetweeners” – specifically, Asian immigrants in the US. Fuelled by her desire to “expand the language to capture these ephemeral experiences” her projects range from Swish Swoosh, both a publication and knitted object that embodies the experience of code switching, and Is This a Typo? – a publication that “tells stories about names that are often misspelt and mispronounced”. In her publications, Sun Ho has an incredible ability to simultaneously create visuals that intrigue an audience, and a way of telling stories that then both engage and educate.

Before Sun Ho was a designer, she spent time helping North Korean refugees “escape from their traffickers and oppressors”. In how her activism and design are intertwined, Sun Ho explains: “Many ask if there’s any similarity between refugee rescue and design; in both works, I am preserving and sharing the experiences of cultural and political inbetweeners who have been neglected, so that we can build a community with more cultural sensitivity.”