Mooncake World:
Chanel Nguyen & Natalie Loos, curated by Lulu Xu

Mooncake World is a physical embodiment of the 144-page photographic zine, Mooncake Zine (2024), expanded into an interactive multi-media exhibition. Through the lens of contemporary queer Asian femininity, Mooncake World is a vivid time capsule of creativity shaped by nostalgia, girlhood and youth culture.

In an era of digital proliferation, Chanel Nguyen and Natalie Loos highlight the importance and intimacy of physical media throughout their work. By weaving together both artists’ unique styles, influences, and rich cultural background, Mooncake World invites viewers into its plush universe, offering a peek behind the curtain of the unapologetically stylish, youthful and feminine charm.

By enlarging, reframing and recontextualising the photoshoots in the zine, the exhibition allows viewers to experience the works on a larger scale, to fully soak into all of its content. Through an immersive installation of a teenage girl’s bedroom, the implicit artistic influences from the artists’ upbringing are brought to life– namely: tween popular culture from the 2000s/ early 2010s, high fashion magazine editorials and cinematic photography.