Anna Sulan Masing
Photos of me on this website by Patricia Niven, unless otherwise stated
I was born in Canberra, Australia, whilst my father was there finishing his PhD, and have grown up in Sarawak, Malaysia and Auckland, New Zealand, and moved to London at to study performing arts. The thing that people get most confused about is my name - Anna Sulan is my first name, and Masing is my last name, but I go by 'Anna' on a daily basis; I like things to be short and sweet!
My father is Iban, an indigenous community in Sarawak, and my mother is a New Zealander of predominantly Scottish heritage. The continued crossing of borders and cultures has made me acutely aware of changing identities. My work consistently looks at identity, race and gender and looks to decolonise the cultural spaces we live in.
My career has span hospitality, the corporate world, media & the arts.
In early 2014 I completed her doctorate, looking at how identity changes when space and location changes. It was through dance, storytelling and food that these concepts of changing identities were embodied - more details here. I still dip in and out of the theatre and perforamce world, occasionally even performing. In 2021 a version of my play Don't Sing In The Kitchen, Or You'll Marry An Old Man was performed at part of the arts festival Encounter Bow.
Food has been a huge part of my life and work. Ask any Malaysian they will tell you that we can talk about food 24/7, if given half that chance! Instead of 'how are you?' we ask - have you eaten? Food is fun. It is how we build home and is very much how we learn to navigate our belonging - it is emotional, visceral but mostly.
I have started a number of wonderful projects that look at the scope of what food and drink mean in our world. I co-founded the popular Voices At The Table events with editor Miranda York, which brings together the food, literary and performance world for a literary salon around food; which became an acclaimed podcast. I launched the online magazine AMP, short for ‘a meeting place’ and play on the the idea of amplifying, as we wanted lift up women's voices in food and drink who had an eye on a sustainable future - although the pandemic threw off schedules and plans, as it was a crowdsourced project I would love to start this up again. I have found that men (and mostly white men) take up a lot of space and air time, when there are a lot of women and those of minority identities who are doing a lot of incredible work.
In 2020 I founded and run SOURCED with writer, academic + chef Chloe-Rose Crabtree. SOURCED is a public research project aimed at developing lines of inquiry into our relationships with food and drink, focusing on ingredients. In 2020 I also launched CHEESE, the magazine of culture with Holly Catford, Apoorva Sripathi + JB Beroud, the first issue was published in May 2021, and hope to make it an annual publication.
I also worked as a brand and communications consultant with PR expert Frankie Reddin on various food and cultural projects, under A + F Creative - this work has so far spanned from the UK, to France and Estonia. I am now heading up the brand strategy at Mr Lyan Studio, a creative agency that focuses on the wide world of hospitality, food, and drink.