Feeling survival: diasporic visual practices by UK–Hong Kong indie publishers, Deacon Lui and Kayla Lui

This article examines how diasporic visual practices mediate the emotional aftermath of Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and the ensuing wave of migration to the UK. Focusing on the self-published works of Hong Kong artists Deacon Lui and Kayla Lui, the author explores how zines, comics and experimental photography register not only political rupture but the ambiguous affective states that follow – fear, absurdity, ambivalence, intimacy. Rather than documenting crisis from a distance, these alternative media forms enact the disorientation of diasporic life from within. Deacon’s photographic practice centres on disappearance and quiet endurance, while Kayla’s comics embrace queer visual excess and emotional instability. Together, their work resists linear narrative and stable identity, holding space for forms of feeling that are still in formation. This analysis positions indie publishing as a method of survival – an affective and aesthetic strategy through which diasporic subjects navigate dislocation, remain connected and make sense of life in transit.