A few days ago I managed to meet with Miss Ma. She is a tailor who makes costumes for the costume players who live around Communication University of Beijing. We were hoarded into a dark alley by one of her young mates and customers, named Woody. The smell upon entering the cabinet was fantastic [...]

I continue   my search for people’s virtual characters and end up following cosplay photographer Francesca. We meet at the old communist factory-turned-art-district “798″ where they have also preserved one of the old Chinese coal trains. Francesca uses this setting to take photos of her good friend Phoenix.  Phoenix here is doing the  girl character of the virtual singers from the voice [...]

I just arrived in Beijing at Renmin University where I will give a talk about animation fans and how they use alter egos and virtual siblings, or even entire imagined clans and families. I want to find out how and why they fantasize about alternative families and how they deal with pressures of the bio-family. But what are the first impressions [...]

Excerpt about love from my previous interview with Beijing costume player Francesa. Francesa’s photographs can be found at hybridre.deviantart.com/gallery F=Francesca, or Hybridre, Cosplayer and Photographer K=Katrien, Interviewer C=Carol, Translator/Interviewer C: Can I ask a question? Assuming that you and your lover are both cosplayers, when you cosplay two characters in love with each other, would [...]

SYMPOSIUM City University of Hong Kong 8-9-10 december http://www.english.cityu.edu.hk/ExtraordinaryDressCode The Extra / Ordinary Dress Code Symposium brings together scholars, writers and artists from diverse nationalities and disciplines to address the subject of fashion in its aesthetic, cultural, ritual, social, performative and historical dimensions. (Photo: cross-dresser Maggie Leung and friend) ******** EXHIBITION The Rest of Us [...]

My Japanese doll complex movie is playing in a film program about ‘Cosplay,’ (costume play or animation and J-rock fans who dress like their favorite characters) organized by the Urban Nomad Festival Let me confess right here that my movie would have been a flop without the support of Sean Hsiao, who introduced me to [...]

I just returned from Tokyo and Kyoto where I took hundreds of photographs and shot about 5 hours of video.  You can access the photo galleries by clicking on the links in the text. First of all the trip was a reunion with my friends from Boston, Shujen Wang and Chris Fujiwara–and their super cute [...]