Lydia Pang is a storyteller and creative director who has ‘haunted’ the halls of Nike, Refinery29, Anomaly and M&C Saatchi. She is a self-professed goth, and is currently launching her own studio and brand back home in Wales. Lydia recently released a limited-run zine on Hakka cuisine called Eat Bitter, which combines her love for punk aesthetic with the food of her heritage.
Which three books would you recommend?
Ways of Seeing John Berger
For people who want to understand the power of the image, those who care about storytelling and the ethics of image-making, and those who spend their days shaping our visual landscape, this book is cutting in its genius simplicity and revelations. My favorite chapter is the visual essay… No words needed. The image comparisons are jarring, exposing and truly shaped the career I went on to have as a creative director for brands. I realized that images could be a powerful tool for good, and that everything from bias, gaze, subject, author, aura, semiotics, intersectional identity, were my responsibilities. This book made me choose to study art history, helped build my belief systems as a creative, and to this day is helping me shape the next chapter of my career as I start my own business rooted in conscious storytelling.
How To Do Nothing Jenny Odell
My best friend sent me this book. We are both productivity, validation, ambition addicts. We love being fast, assertive, decisive, and these qualities have carried us both very far in our careers...and yet, we've both experienced varying degrees of physical and mental burn out. We needed pause, a reset and truly, rest. She sent this to me and I read it in a little cabin in the forest in Oregon. I would recommend it to anyone feeling like time is their enemy, anyone feeling like they're struggling to stop and heal, or stop and see. Those who need to feel both inspired and refueled. This book is really nourishing and I loved all the art history references in it.. if you're an art theory nerd like me, you'll love it. If you're just looking for some peace, you'll love it.
Explaining HumansCamilla Pang
This book was written by my baby sister. So I enjoyed it for many deep and personal reasons, as it depicts her experience of autism and her love of science as a mechanism to unpack and make sense of the world around us. It's funny, beautifully observed, vulnerable and incredibly powerful. Her autism is her self-described super power and the way she's reframed her pain and turned it into power, agency and created a platform for others to be seen and understood, inspires me every single day.