d+a | Issue 116 • Jun/July 2020

91 FromPlanet H, visitors traverse up a staircase to the futuristic Habitat H, interacting with faux machinery amid plants that laud the host city’s own penchant for nature and innovation. The experience spills to the street through artful window displays, a dynamic façade graphic and an interactive feature that lights up stars and planets. LIKE PLANNING A PARTY This installation could well represent the inside of Lee’s mind. Her Alice in Wonderland-type encounters use storytelling and games to get her points across, and the joyful responses they generate echo the fun she has making them. Lotus leaves frozen in the Float resin table for Industry+ gives to mesmerising light play. The gnarled and the gleaming juxtapose in a wabi sabi moment for her ’30 LifeStories – Remembering Parks’ Struck bench. For Bynd Artisan, leather-bound tomes masquerade as coin banks and clutches, and the pastel, brassy objects in The Athena Collection are technologically-useful without being high-tech. In Lee’s hands, the everyday – materials, messages and memories – become more beautiful. In photographs, Lee’s arresting features – small eyes embellished with kohl flicks, prominent rosebud lips, blunt fringe – accompany structured outfits to project confidence and focus. In person, she is also girly and approachable, and speaks with an endearing lyrical timbre. This disposition reflects her works, which are as whimsical as they are relevant, and as aesthetically- inclined as they are technically-refined. She elaborates on her approach of slow reveal. “There’s a bit of mischief in what I do,” she chuckles. “I think in design, you need to have a sense of fun, play and humour. Thinking about a [project’s] experience is like planning a party – how do I build in thoughtful touch points with a surprise at the end?” For Lee, play is serious business, “I find that when you talk about qualities like happiness, beauty or wonder in design, people immediately write that off as superficial. “But I firmly disagree. I think we need a greater sense of wonder in our buy-and-throw away culture. It allows us to have greater appreciation for our objects,” she ruminates. Furthermore, when people come to the message on their own, in a fun way, they’re most likely to remember it. The word “wonder” pops into her projects, as if a reminder of this manifesto. There is the Museum of Wonder – a Hermès shop window display which has jocular, absurdist mise en scène snapshots Lee’s version of industrialisation – and The Wonder Facility, her studio-cum-co-work- office welcoming alike minds. An admirable lexicon running the gamut of Greek mythology, history and science backs her visions. She’s not just a romantic; she’s also a geek. Lee smiles in admission.