HELENA LEE
The Features Director of Harper’s Bazaar UK is on a mission to amplify voices through her cultural salon and soon-to-be book, East Side Voices.
If 2020 has taught us anything so far, it’s that we need change. We need to uproot systemic racism and diversify representation across all facets of society, from our government leadership to mainstream media. One quietly seminal figure who’s strengthening diversity and representation within media is Helena Lee, Features Director at Harper’s Bazaar and Town & Country UK. For Lee, amplifying voices have always been on the top of her mind, even before the rest of the world woke up to the palpable fact that Black Lives (do) Matter.
As a first-generation child of Chinese immigrants from Malaysia and Hong Kong, Lee herself is a symbol of diversity in an industry so laden with the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities. Now a 10-year veteran at Harper’s Bazaar, she has taken on a new title as the founder of East Side Voices, a cultural salon for East and Southeast Asian writers, designers and other storytellers. Through panel discussions, podcast episodes, and now, virtual interviews, East Side Voices serves as a platform and community network for these storytellers to spread their narratives and support each other. WOW spoke to Lee about the establishment of East Side Voices, the biggest challenges of her job, and how one can come to terms with his or her identity.
INTERVIEWER ELAINE YJ LEE
You shifted your career path to editorial after six years in advertising. When did you realise you wanted to work in media instead?
I looked at my work, and I just wasn’t enamoured with what I was doing. Advertising is fantastic, but it was emotionally wearing. I’d been writing all my life, but it never occurred to me that I could possibly make a living from it, mostly because of a lack of representation.
Do you see many successful East Asians writing? No, not really. There obviously are, but they don’t have the same visibility. Then I heard about the MA in Journalism at City University, and it suddenly felt like a light switch had been turned on. After the program, I saw a job for an assistant role at Harper’s Bazaar while working at a newspaper. It was a demotion and a pay cut, but I went for it. I thought, why not? One minute, I was working with clients like Stella Artois and Unilever, and the next minute I was organising people’s bookshelves right at the very bottom again.
You’ve been with Harper’s Bazaar for ten years now. Can you walk us through the different roles you had within the publication?
I’ve always been in features. It’s in my blood, I suppose. Bazaar has a very rich history of collaborating with artists and writers like Virginia Woolf. I was in the archives the other day, and I found some amazing James Baldwin essays with a portrait by Richard Avedon. Continuing that tradition is a big part of the job. I feel it’s quite a responsibility to help shape the cultural landscape.
I also edit our art magazine, Bazaar Art, which comes out every year around Frieze Week. We collaborate with artists like Tracy Emin to create limited edition covers. I also look at ways to extend the brand to create new revenue streams. What I love about the job is that it’s never just one thing. I think that probably comes from my advertising background, that I’m a bit of a jack of all trades.
In your view, what is the difference between the role of the editor and that of the writer? What are the qualities that make for a successful editor?
As an editor, it’s my job to get the best story overall, to make sure all the circumstances are right for the best outcome. You have to have a good sense of the final product. It’s sort of like being the conductor of an orchestra. You’ve got to have all the elements — the visuals, captions, everything that’s going to contribute to the reader having the best experience.
And ultimately, the story has to have a purpose. I don’t think you can be a good editor at this moment in time without purpose, whether it’s to educate or to inspire the audience. And you need to inspire the writer that you’re working with.
When working on a story, what are the elements you consider?
Ultimately for me, it’s about storytelling. That could be through the visuals or the words, but they have to have power in what they say even if that power is laughter. Otherwise, there’s no point. I think at the moment, storytelling is everything because we’re living in a global pandemic. We’ve got all these things happening with Black Lives Matter. As writers and editors, we are in a privileged position of being able to amplify voices, so finding the right person to tell the story is key. Finding the right people to write, to hero and shoot. Even the photographers can be the storytellers.
In your opinion, what is the role of print today? Do you find that print is still essential, or do you err on the side of digital media and sustainability?
My generation has certainly been conditioned to love print. With print, since you can touch it, you don’t run down this endless rabbit hole. That’s not to say anything about the validity of digital media, but there’s so much misinformation around. Print is a little more of a compass, more solid in a way, something that you can trust.
And the experience of reading print is really different. Personally, when I’m on my phone, I feel like half my mind is somewhere else.
As an Asian woman, what has been your biggest challenge of working in fashion and culture media?
I’ve heard a few racial slurs by some very, very well-known photographers whom I won’t name. To be honest, the biggest challenge is this lack of general visibility of Asians. Visibility is dire. I don’t know how many Asians feel that they have a place in this world because of it.
Please tell us about East Side Voices. What is the platform about & what motivated you to establish it?
I decided to establish it after watching Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. I just realised that in all these depictions of Asians, that all anyone saw of Asians in popular culture, the talent is either sent up —like Bruce Lee in Once Upon a Time, or like that girl in Pitch Perfect: silent. She doesn’t say anything. I’m ashamed that I don’t even know the character’s name. It’s really hard to name an East or Southeast Asian character on television. I wanted to set up a platform that highlighted the talent of East and Southeast Asian origin because I wanted to see more Asian faces and more normal stories about them. At a time when Donald Trump is being derogatory — and racist — about China, it’s important to foster empathy and understanding between cultures. Starting with diasporic voices is important because that’s the link between all the cultures that might seem so far away from us.
East Side Voices began as a cultural salon at the Standard Hotel in London. I held panel discussions with people like novelists Sharlene Teo and Rowan Hisayo Buchanan. They really deconstructed issues like decolonising fiction, and the way publishing presumes the reader is this older white male. But there’s a whole range of people who want to read a whole range of voices. We were in conversation with the designer Rejina Pyo for the second one. We’ve also secured a book deal with Sceptre, who is going to publish a collection of essays from the brightest East and Southeast Asians writing today — including Sharlene, Rowan and Tash Aw.
I am a Korean American myself, and at 29 years old, I’m still not sure if I’ve come to terms with my dual identity. Being Asian is one thing, and being Asian American or Asian British is another. How can one come to terms with his or her identity?
I think coming to terms with one’s identity depends massively on society as well, because if you don’t see yourself represented, it seems to erase your validity in that society. That’s the reason I run East Side Voices. I don’t know how you come to terms — it’s difficult, isn’t it? What I am finding helpful is reading a lot more. Cathy Park Hong’s recent book, Minor Feelings, for example, rings horribly true. As a minority, it can feel like there’s no space for you in society, but there is. You have to always make space and keep saying what you’re saying and find the community that says it with you. Mainstream media has a massive role to play. Everyone struggles with identity, but with race, you struggle that much more.
I thought it was on me to navigate these gaps and do the work. For you to say that society also has to do with it, it’s an obvious truth, but something that never crossed my mind. I just thought it was always my private responsibility to come to terms with my identity.
This is why I think the Black Lives Matter movement is so inspiring. It’s changing cultural consciousness. It’s like a massive juggernaut that’s turning society round bit by bit. It’s not easy, but it’s forcing people to see differently. Racism is so ingrained in Western culture that, I suppose it’s taken Black Lives Matter just to even move it a little bit. But there’s a reckoning now with racism. I feel that Asians are so silent in media, which isn’t representative at all of this rich culture. We have to speak up. We have to galvanise, and that takes a lot of work, especially at this time when so many Asians have experienced awful racism as a result of Coronavirus.
Other than Cathy Park Hong, do you have any other Asian voices, writers, or creatives on your radar? What other works, readings, or films would you recommend?
I love Xiaolu Guo, who is a Booker Prize judge. She’s got a new book out called A Lover’s Discourse, and it’s this brilliant exploration of a relationship through vignettes of conversations. It’s so clever. I also love Francis Cha’s If I Had Your Face. That was really good.
In light of Black Lives Matter, are there any changes being implemented at Harper’s Bazaar to ensure diversity in the workplace and content?
We have a responsibility and an amplified voice, so we have to use it in the right way. I think we can always do more, but I definitely feel proud that we’ve worked with a real range of voices because there’s so much talent to be found. We worked with Booker Prize winner, Bernardine Evaristo on our short story competition, trying to reach places where we’ve not reached before to make sure that the entries were wide-ranging. The authors Diana Evans and Elif Shafak recently wrote incredible essays on why the world needs stories, to make this world a better, more inclusive society. Diversity is something I’m constantly thinking about in terms of the images and the words that are in the magazine. It’s absolutely at the core of what I do.
What advice would you give to other Asians who want to work in fashion or media?
Develop your voice and your point of view and just be comfortable with it. Do not be deterred by the lack of Asian faces. Be diverse. Educate others and be vocal. See your difference as being a real benefit of what you can bring. Absolutely go and permeate those areas.
This interview was originally published in The WOW N° 3, 2020.