The Amp Issue 3: Letter from the Editor

Brokenness feels an apt description for much of 2025. Against long-extant fault lines, we’ve witnessed, and continue to witness, the violent disintegration of what so many of us have worked hard to hold together.

When animator and illustrator (and incoming first lady of NYC) Rama Duwaji first sent us this year’s cover image, it called to mind the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition, “Monstrous Beauty: A Feminist Revision of Chinoiserie,” one of the most thought-provoking shows I’d seen this year.

In particular, it reminded me of Amp contributor Hannah Bae’s description of artist Yeesookyung’s series, “Translated Vases” (2002—ongoing). “…Ceramic shards are melded together; their jagged cracks are embellished with gold leaf,” writes Bae. “By tracing the objects’ fragility, Yeesookyung suggests a new (after)life for porcelain—one that is beautiful in its alterity…it portrays an afterlife of porcelain, a loss of its intended functionality and a transformation of its aesthetic from pristine to hybrid and ‘monstrous.’”

Indeed, in monstrous times, we are summoned to come together to pick up the pieces and reassemble ourselves into something new—and perhaps truer. Now in its third edition, the print issue of The Amp continues to exemplify this process for me. In revisiting all that we’ve published annually, I’m given the opportunity to consider what the greater sum of our parts might be. An exact answer always eludes me; our collective sum is always too complex, too nuanced, too in-flux to totalize. Every year, I find myself tracing the seams and finding joy in discovering all the myriad connective tissues that bind us together.

As always, I’d like to thank our ever-growing community of contributors, artists, readers, and supporters who continue to deepen, challenge, and expand what it means to be Asian American. I’d also like to thank my colleagues at Asian American Arts Alliance, Lisa Gold, Michelle Bae, Leo Chang, Justine Lee, Stephanie Shin, and Danielle Wu; this year’s Amp intern, Lajward Zahra; our print issue designer, Helen Chen; and our printers, Lucky Risograph.

In considering this year’s issue, I am also reminded of Adrienne Rich’s 1973 poem, Diving Into the Wreck. Like Duwaji’s illustration and Yeesookyung’s sculptures, Rich’s work offers a profound metaphor for the creative process:

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
[…]
We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

As the new year fast approaches, I am considering all the ways in which we might collectively dive deep with all the tools available to us, and put ourselves together anew amid the wreckage.

In community and with care,

Shannon Lee
Editor, The Amp