Everything Rat Moves, Moves Through Jennother: An Interview With Jennifer Cheuk 卓嘉敏

I first met Jennifer Cheuk 卓嘉敏 when she was plus-one’d to my 2017 birthday party. Within minutes of meeting, we were analysing niche animated media, fangirling over comics and brainstorming each other’s future projects.

Half a decade later and several Auckland Zinefests later, in January 2022, I received a message. “I’m going to do my own magazine with blackjack, and hookers,” Jenn said, “I’m thinking of calling it Rat World“.

Within three months, the first issue of Rat World: A Magazine for the Underground was launched at NiceGoblins HQ. Two years and another six issues later, I’m still blown away by Jenn’s creatively collaborative spirit and her intense drive to platform underground arts in Aotearoa. When I heard we were doing an issue of Debate themed “Mahi”, she was the first person that I thought of.

Jenn’s most recent project, Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another, is a landmark anthology of twenty-seven creatives from across Aotearoa; conceived in response to the lack of authentic representation for biracial, mixed-heritage and multi-ethnic individuals living in Aotearoa. Supported by the Asian Arts Fund and published by 5ever Books, the anthology features photography, comics, essays, poetry and multimedia art.

I wanted to Nardwuar you a little…How did publishing Everything That Moves, Moves Through Another (ETM, MTA) compare to publishing your own anthology, The Peculiar Thoughts of a Hummingbird, when you were 17?

Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa, oh shit. Wow, okay, yeah, that was very Nardwuar of you, okay, fine.

I was always really interested in the way you could manifest emotion and theme in a tangible process. I think that’s what’s so amazing about publishing, that you can be really in touch with paper and glue and binding. For that first book, we got it printed at some random book binder-ey place that was family-owned out East, and they forgot to put the spine title on it. When I received it back, they were like: “It doesn’t matter, it’s still a book”. I was about 15-16, and I looked at it and thought: Well this isn’t the book as a full object. I was kind of aware of what it needed to be, to be held as a book.

I was chatting with Sinead Gleason recently, the Irish author, and she was like: “Anthologies are a really accessible reading point for people, because there’s so much in them and so much variation, that you pick it up and if you don’t like page 9, you can flip to page 20 and there’s something different that might be for you.” I think about that a lot, and that’s probably why I really like magazines as well. [So] many times I pick up a novel, I read the first page, I go: Ugh, not for me. Not to diss on novels, but I think that anthologies can be such a special place of finding work and discovery.

Rat World and ETM, MTA share an ethos in being so varied in the types of media present. An anthology feels like a magazine issue on a grander scale.

It’s probably because I have trouble making decisions. (Laughter). I think it’s a lot to do with form, because I’m aware that magazines are a bit more ephemeral. We did have a much longer period of time with ETM, MTA, and I was able to give people so much space to work creatively. That’s what [has me] really psyched about this publication, that you can see the time and capacity and energy just put into thinking and investigating; Thinking about form and creativity…That’s a luxury, right? To be able to give time to do that. That was a really big part of this project from the very beginning, [as] this is such a vulnerable topic.

[ETM, MTA] was built out of a real collective practice. All of the design was done so collectively. And similar to Rat World, we took a lot of time with the contributors to make sure they were happy with how their work was presented. If they had a particular typeface or design style they wanted on the page, we made sure that that was a conversation we had together. Not only is that important for being respectful to the artist, but it’s also being respectful to the process of creating; experimenting and finding new ways of thinking about work together. Otherwise, you’re just going to see the same stuff. It becomes like the Instagram algorithm. If you’re making stuff by yourself forever, you’re just going to be in your own echo chamber.

Rat World Issue Seven: Queer Takeover is a collaboration with Auckland Pride. How was that for you, letting your baby bird rat fly?

Nathan [Joe] from Auckland Pride approached me about doing a collab for the next issue. And I thought that was a great idea, but I was also aware that as much as I was an ally for the queer community, I wouldn’t be able to provide the right editorial scope and support that would be needed. That’s why I really wanted to get a guest editor for this one. I think that’s important as an editor; knowing when to step back, when to understand your context, biases, and perspectives, and when to give someone else space to hold the publication for themselves. I think having Nathan and Jean [Teng be] a part of this [has been] great. To have different perspectives on different art forms and interview structures that I wouldn’t have thought of. Opening up the space for people is so much fun. I do so much of the Rat World work at like 3am, so I’ve been having to try [to] figure out myself how to do it sustainably; because I don’t want to impart that structure onto someone else. It’s been a good realisation about working in a more healthy way, I guess, because there are other people on this project now. So I’m thinking: Well, I can’t just email someone at midnight and be like “Ah, I forgot to do this thing. Let’s do that tomorrow”.

Sleep is mahi, having dinner with your family is mahi…

I really like your take on ‘mahi’ for this, being about ‘work’ in that wider sense. The work we do for each other as well as ourselves. But if we’re talking about ‘mahi’, I [need] to talk about burnout. I’ve been working a full-time job (as Programme Director for the Auckland Writers Festival), doing Rat World, writing a CNZ funded script (Notes Underground), doing this book, and also I was the archivist for Satellites, the first Aotearoa Asian arts archive. I had a real difficulty saying no to things, and I’m getting [a lot] better at it now. I sent an email yesterday saying I don’t have the capacity to do this super amazing thing. Sending that was really hard. I think it’s easy in these [unstable] freelance scenes to just say yes to everything at once for fear that there will be nothing in two months.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with people about how to make this a sustainable scene. Even with 5ever Books who are doing and producing so much, it’s really difficult on a shoestring budget with such a small team. How can we help each other when funding isn’t a given anymore? How can we support that labour? In terms of burnout, it’s hard. People often ask me: “How are you doing so much?” I don’t want people to think that this is what you should strive for, because a lot of this was not sustainable for me, and I’m having to pare back a lot. If you saw me three months ago doing everything, that was not a good look. Please do not strive for that. I was not happy, and I was not doing well.

I’m on this journey of trying to understand the best workflow for me, ADHD and all. For me, it manifests in  [crawling] into a hole and [ignoring] everyone. Sometimes I get emails that are amazing opportunities, and I completely close up. Then I don’t tell anyone, so no one knows I had to reply to this email. So I just ignore it and then months later I’ll realise I’ve missed a deadline for getting back to [the] person – and I have a complete mental breakdown about it. The first step I’m trying to do is tell people, so there can be support around me. With ADHD, there’s so much going on in your brain already that is completely used up. That’s the ADHD superpower, right? I can identify any Spongebob or Simpsons episode just from a single frame, but I can’t reply to your emails.

You’ve talked before about Hong Kong and how it has influenced your practice…

Everyone in most of East Asia, they do that “996” thing. 9am to 9pm, 6 days a week. The work culture is crazy. Everyone I know is burnt out who lives in Hong Kong, pretty much. I feel like I have a lot of that in me, because of the people that I know over there and the family that I have, but then I also am aware that it’s not good because of where I live here. And so I’m always trying to sit back and be like: Wait a moment, that’s not healthy or sustainable, and it’s not a practice that I should glorify.

I’ve been having a lot of conversations with All My Friends, a queer Asian creative collective. I’m helping them platform articles for the upcoming exhibition Niu Gold Mountain, which is all about investigating the migrant diaspora in a contemporary context. I’m so aware that my parents didn’t have this opportunity, and they weren’t able to have an education or to pursue arts. I know that my parents love [the arts] world, and I was so grateful and so privileged for them to be able to introduce me to these sorts of things in the context that they could. I’ve carried that with me a lot, that even though I’m in the arts scene, [and] I didn’t go and be a lawyer or whatever…I still want to do this justice as much as I can. I want to do my parents’ sacrifices justice. My grandfather was illiterate in China, no one in my direct ancestry could have done this, I feel very lucky all the time and I just want to do it.

Whenever I lose my way and I tell people I don’t know what I’m doing, people will look at me and go: “But it’s obvious what you’re doing”. When I was four, I wrote and ‘published’ a little zine. It’s called The Dragon Who Lost His Parents. I was looking at [it] and I was like: Holy shit, I really made another book. I have another upstairs called How to Speak English for My Dad. This is my interest in language…I was about eight and I’d written chapters on grammar, language, syntax, and translating between Cantonese and English for him. Recently, I looked at it and I was like: God, I really am the most predictable person ever, aren’t I?

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