Words BY ANGELINE MULIA
image courtesy of tamtam
The Gen Z Creator Who Is Reigniting Indonesia's Food Biodiversity Scene
[1 January 2026] Over the past few years, our world has been riddled with endless news about the state of our climate. Global warming, natural disasters, genocide, war, the list is growing by the minute. But in between the sources of bleak information and a fatigued audience are creators like Woo Qiyun who try their best to lessen the barriers of understanding - one thoughtfully designed post at a time. Different from the rest, she uses a medium that many of us have been familiar with since young - comics.
angie
Starting from your background, I know you admire Robert Irwin a lot, and you later on studied environmental science in university. What made you go down the path of advocating for climate communication specifically?
angie
Yeah, that's great. I know, in your career, you have dedicated a large portion of it to raising awareness, from a regional point of view. Being in Singapore, have you faced any difficulties in trying to adapt to the way the local audience perceive the climate?
qiyun
I say yes, because I think throughout Southeast Asia, every audience is a bit more different, and that is compared to a large English speaking audience, yeah, so I do think that a lot of my work is largely Singapore focused. But then I try to link what is Singapore doing in relation to other countries, or is something happening in another country that relates to us? So, there will be issues where there was a renewable energy company that was doing a lot of deforestation in the Philippines, and that company is a Singaporean company. I try to make those like links, but I must say that I think trying to contextualize it to Southeast Asia, which is so diverse, is such a difficult thing to do, and it's only possible by doing it with other people who are on the ground in those countries.
angie
Yeah, definitely. Have you found the Singaporean audience respond differently compared to international audiences, or relatively the same?
qiyun
I think for me, I had a very similar starting point to where you, got that whole thing about trying to make science more fun or positive, but mine came from a point where I started this in 2017-2018, and sustainability wasn't something that people talked about and it only was beginning to be talked about. But when you Google things like weather, recycle, about nature, you get a lot of very western links, a lot of Western content. I just felt like, because my friends were all doing very interesting stuff about conservation, I thought, okay, if I start this, I could talk about that so that my other friends, who are not in the environmental space, could benefit from whatever I was learning, because I lived in a college where it was interdisciplinary. So a lot of my other friends from law school, engineering, were asking me, where do I find this? Where do I find that, yeah. Then they were like, can you put this somewhere that is easily consolidated. Then I started the Instagram account.
qiyun
I think in terms of reception it is relatively the same, but I feel maybe their starting point might be very different, especially with, let's say, Americans or Europeans, their exposure to climate or even terms like climate justice, is so different from how we relate to that topic. I think ‘justice’ is still seen as such a controversial word. Whereas, like activism, for them is very normal. So I do think that when people talk about, oh we need climate justice and things like that, it still has to be a word that you use with a lot of care to make sure you don't alienate people who have misconceived notions of what it is.
angie
I think one of the things that you said previously, I read in an interview, you said that the climate crisis should be approached with curiosity instead of fear, but seeing how environmental anxiety is very prevalent among Gen Z, how do you balance emotional sensitivity with accuracy in your communication?
qiyun
Yeah, I actually borrowed this idea from this Singaporean artist called Sunny Liu. And he has this comic called The Art of Charlie Chan, animal history of Singapore. And I remember when I read it like it's such a heavy topic, with a lot of complications. But he had a character that would almost be like the questions that you as a reader had–that character voiced out. So then you almost feel, oh, yeah, I wonder that too, or, Oh, I didn't think about that, and now I want to know why you thought about it. Yeah, so it just felt like you had a friend walking through all the difficult parts of the story, yeah. And then I thought that made a lot of sense from the climate perspective, where it was very hard for me to just keep talking about the fact, without having someone be like, Have you thought about this? Like, can you consider this? These are the things that I'm wondering.
angie
I think the use of your green blob in your comics, there's almost like a child-like tone that makes your work very approachable. Do you think its emotional relatability helps the audience connect more deeply with the issues?
No, 100%.I don't think people remember facts that much.
qiyun
angie
You went to COP 28 last year, and you spoke about how culture strengthens science communication. But what aspects do you think make people more drawn to the message? Or, you know, is it like relatability, or is it fear even?
angie
Another thing that you have raised up is how stories resonate more than just, you know, blatant text or just statistics, right? But we cannot exactly, I guess, separate statistics from facts. Do you think it can be made more relatable through storytelling or localised perspectives?
qiyun
Oh, this one was super difficult for me to figure out. And I think the post that I did on the Changi Beach, that was one of the few pieces that I felt like as much as I needed scientific accuracy, I needed to touch on the anxiety. Because I feel like it was very difficult to justify, from a scientific perspective of, yeah, you know, it's gonna be fine in a few years. We're not gonna lose that much. But from an emotional standpoint, it's almost like, oh my gosh, this thing that I love so much is disappearing, and it took me a while to figure out how I could tweak certain ways of narratives. To first talk about how we can lose something that gave me so much to be inspired by and then be like, but actually, scientists say all these, but we're very concerned about other things. So I think this is best done through visuals. If it's just pure text, I don't know how emotive you can get. Whereas in, I can tweak things like facial expression, color choice, the setting to convey the sense of loss.
Scientist may say all this, but how do we feel?
tamtam
qiyun
I think fear is a driver, but I do think that fear only gets people, maybe reading it once or twice. But if you want them to sustain like this is a topic that I'm very interested in, you have to tap into like joy and curiosity, which I think fashion does very well, because a lot of people enjoy, like, the glitz, the glamor, the art behind it. And then without that, I don't think people will be very keen on a particular topic, unless you are filled with outrage at the injustice. So yeah, fear only drives people to somewhere, but then to keep them there, you need a lot more. Which is why I think culture is the best way.
angie
Thank you so much. Okay, one last thing, if you could share one thing that's changed your perspective on communicating or just learning about the climate ever since you started The Weird and Wild. What would it be?
qiyun
The Weird and Wild has shown me – I guess two things, which is that when I do what I'm doing, most of the time, I'm taking something that I read in a text and then I just translate it using the exact same words onto a comic or visual medium. And more people read that and then say, like, it is more accessible, but the fundamental is, it's the exact same thing, yeah. So it has shown me like, oh, this thing works. Like, the visual element, it works because it's almost like people don't have the preconceived notion that this is going to be difficult to read. And comics have that special ability to make you feel like, if it's a comic book, it should be easy, which makes people want to read it a little bit more. So that's been something that I'm like, oh, okay, there is something here to figure out. But the other thing is, whenever I go out to give talks and things and I talk to people, a lot of people think that my comics are for children. The preconceived notion that comics are for children, right? Like, Oh, so cute. My kid would love this. But then, I will read back my comic, and I'm like, actually, it's really just for people who are in secondary school and above, and especially most people who are professionals and working, that is my target audience. So I also wonder, am I being perceived wrongly based on the visual medium that I chose? Or is it a secret super power? So it's an interesting place to navigate where I have to explain to people. If you actually read this to a kid, I'm glad if they can understand.
angie
Yeah, I actually think it's a superpower. I mean, people, when they perceive something as accessible to children, I think they would want to understand it more, because they think, okay, why can't I understand this?