Tsz Yan Wong
(She/her)
I am a graphic designer interested in editorial design, collage, typography and print. My work often begins with research into social and ethical issues, which I explore through experimental image-making, physical materials and publication design.
The Returned Look
The Returned Look explores how humans see, categorise and treat animals, and questions the idea that we are somehow separate from or superior to them. The project grew from my own discomfort with zoos and from noticing how rarely I encounter animals in everyday life beyond pets and birds. It made me ask: where have they all gone, and how much of that absence is caused by us?
Through research into captivity, animal representation and the human gaze, including John Berger’s Why Look at Animals?, I began thinking about animals not simply as subjects to be observed, but as beings capable of looking back at us.
Using collage and photomontage, I combine animals, people and everyday objects into unfamiliar hybrid creatures and scenes. These works challenge the way animals are turned into objects, entertainment or symbols, and invite viewers to reconsider the distance we create between human and non-human life.
