A postcard from development

Exciting announcements and updates!

It’s been only a couple of weeks, but operating from a new space has been a relief of sorts. So, this week’s postcard is filled with a couple of exciting announcements:

In over a week’s time I’ll be having my first ever event for Plates. It’s a micro launch event for my latest issue: Plates, Vol.4: Seeds (yes, the one that went through a fair bit of firefighting over the past couple of months while in total lockdown). 

As we slowly navigate our way out of this two-year on/off lockdown in Malaysia, I hope the event will serve as a time and space for people to discover spontaneous and ephemeral connections with like-hearted persons in nature.

Last week, I sent out personalised invites to those who signed up to Plates’ store/event mailing list. If you’re not on the list, you can sign up here to make sure you don’t miss out on future announcements. 

In the meantime, please consider this your invite to the micro launch on Sunday, October 17 at Rimbun Dahan, Kuang, Selangor, Malaysia. (You can find the full event details and registration form here.)

And if you’re not in Malaysia, or even just outside of Selangor/Kuala Lumpur where we still can’t cross state borders, I thought I’d share this clip that holds selected moments from my time at Rimbun Dahan, an artist residency set in a Southeast Asia dipterocarp forest and a space where I started this very postcard thread back in 2020 and recorded my very first podcast.

Separately, with a few (heavy) deadlines out of the way, I’ve reopened the webstore this week; stocked with the latest a la carte issue of Plates and postcards. 

As an aside, as I was stacking this postcard together, I received an email rejection. It stings. That’s it. No deep reflective thoughts.

But it does seem like this bootstrapping, word-of-mouth model will continue to be the core of this independent food culture magazine’s existence, which, from the very beginning, relies on those who dare to colour outside the lines—without waiting to be told that it’s safe to do so.

Know that I appreciate you being here each week, choosing beyond the curation of gatekeepers and continuing to tell people about Plates.

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This week, I’m

working on: prepping for the micro launch event for Plates, Vol.4: Seeds

listening to: NPR’s Life Kit podcast

Plates is an independent print magazine that uses food as a conversation starter and offers alternatives to mainstream food culture narratives. If you enjoyed reading this postcard, feel free to forward it to a friend; leave a comment; or, if you’ve been meaning to, but haven’t quite gotten around to it, grab a plate and introduce yourself here. Sporadic, but intentional, updates on IG@platesmagazine. Thanks for reading. See you next week.