Can you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

I’m Ruby, a writer, editor, and publisher. I’m the editor-in-chief of Mynah Magazine, an independent print magazine about Singapore. We also started The Mynah Podcast in the last year as a way to introduce some of the most interesting people we know to our audience. We had Renée from SGABF on as a guest in March!

Outside of my Mynah work, I’m an essayist and critic.

 

Are there certain themes, formats, or visual styles in art books that you’re instinctively drawn to?

 

I’m a big “function over form” person. Every element of a book (layout, format, size, binding, etc.) should serve a purpose; I really can’t get behind a publishing gimmick.

As a writer and editor, I’m heavily biased towards books that take text seriously. I think there’s a misassumption that art books generally don’t have a lot of text, or that books that are text-heavy can’t be art books. That isn’t true at all. The book is one of the best ways to encounter text. (It’s way better than the exhibition panel, in my opinion.) It’s silly to treat text as an afterthought, even in an image-heavy book.

 

Could you share more about Mynah Magazine?

Mynah has been publishing original longform journalism and cultural criticism for almost a decade. We started the mag back in 2016 as people who knew very little about independent publishing. Mynah is a funny experiment; from the beginning, our two major commitments have been editorial independence and paying fair rates for creative labour. The main team, including myself, is made up of volunteers but we pay everybody else who works on the magazine. Our entirely reader-funded model doesn’t really exist in this form anywhere else so we’ve had to learn a lot on the job. I was (naively) surprised by the amount of “boring” work required to work in publishing — file management, budget spreadsheets, email correspondence, etc.

 

If your bookshelf had a personality, what would it be like?

Resilient. It’s currently carrying probably twice its actual capacity right now. I’m very creative with how I stack books.

Have you ever regretted buying or not buying a book/zine?

A picture book by Anete Melece called The Kiosk. I ordered it for the bookstore where I was working as a buyer and snuck frequent peeks inside during my shifts. It’s about a shopkeeper whose entire life exists within her tiny newsstand kiosk. One day, she and her kiosk are accidentally knocked over and her real adventure begins. The book is marketed for children aged five to eight so buying it for myself didn’t really occur to me. I have thought about it quite a lot over the last five years though!

 

What’s a hidden gem in your collection?

I just picked up The Teddy Bear Chronicles by the Hong Kong writer Xi Xi, translated by Christina Sanderson. The book is a catalogue of teddy bears she made by hand. The bears are based on characters from Chinese folklore and history.

I visited City Book Room for an event and found myself instantly drawn to the book’s cover, a picture of the Zhong Lichun teddy bear. (I’m a sucker for cute things.) Xi Xi included mini-essays about each character with the photographs. I love how she talks about the process of making each bear. This is what she said about Zhong Lichun:

“On stage she is always portrayed with split-face makeup. For her teddy bear I used purple mohair and gave her a blue butterfly shaped patch as an accessory. She should look plain and simple, but I think some bright colours are in order for a queen, don’t you?”

 

What is the earliest and latest publication you acquired?

I subscribe to four literary magazines – n+1, The London Review of Books, Bookforum, and The Drift. My latest acquisition was probably the newest issue from one of them.

 

What do you generally look for at an art book fair? Do you have tips for navigating the space/exhibitors/content? 

If you really like something, buy it on the spot! The fairs I’ve attended have always been very busy. I might be outing myself here but I have never followed through on a “I’ll be back after looking around!” promise. If you don’t like something enough to feel the regret of walking away, you are unlikely to remember it when you get home. By the time I get to the end of the fair, I’m way too tired to circle back. Remember to pack light, wear comfortable shoes, and bring spare tote bag(s) too :)

 

Images of Mynah Magazine by Mynah Magazine | Images of Ruby by Pixie Tan

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I Am [ ] & These Are My Art Books is an interview series by Thing Books that explores what makes an art book matter through the shelves of those who collect, read, and live with them.