Do Not Design – Waking Up in Strange Places

Waking Up in Strange Places is a travel compendium about Singapore-based photographer, Juliana Tan’s adventure through 9 countries and 33 cities. It is a compilation of her travel journey throughout 14 months abroad captured in 3 books (one on Rooms, one on Landscapes), 8 postcards bounded in a book and 1 paper aeroplane. Travel related items such as airport tag stickers, fragile labels, diaries, postcards and paper aeroplanes were translated into chapters of photographs, interviews and essays. Designing with the future in mind, chapters are attached together using magnets, allowing future collections to be added for future travel documentations. There is no fixed sequel in reading, readers get to decide on their own version of Juliana’s journey by re-arranging the chapters in any way they want—the title could then be read as ‘Waking Up In Strange Rooms’ or ‘Waking Up In Strange Places’.Readers are engaged in things like tearing the postcards apart to use, flying the paper aeroplanes and removing the landscape photos from its chapter, as such mirroring Juliana traveling experiences. Each zine is individually cling wrapped and plastered with stickers in random positions to re-create the experience of receiving a luggage at the baggage carousel. Individual chapter can be “pinned” onto fridges or magnetic boards echoing the concept of travel magnets.