Whose Home

By Ryan Scullin, Melon Wong, and Pio Okada

From the Photographer:

My name is Ryan Scullin, I am a Bushwick based photographer and graphic designer. I lived in Tokyo for around two years and moved to NYC a few months before the pandemic hit. In December of 2019, around the time I moved to New York, I met this incredibly talented designer named Melon Wong and we decided to collaborate on a shoot when my good friend Pio came to visit NYC. In February of 2020, Pio crashed on my couch for a week and during that time we met so many creative artists and designers, and created a large amount of images with different collaborators. Melon designed these pieces after returning from studying abroad. During her time in Europe, she became especially nostalgic for home even though she never felt quite “home” at home either. These pieces, despite being shot at her grandmother’s home, still feel like an unattainable fantasy of home in a mixed culture identity. I felt very lucky to be able to work with Melon on this project and we’ve worked on multiple projects since then but this one holds a special place in my heart due to Pio’s involvement, the creative energy of that whole week and the optimism we all had going into 2020. At the time I remember people talking about COVID-19, and what would happen if it started spreading quickly in the U.S., but I don’t think anyone knew how much things would change in just a month.