A community magazine showcasing extraordinary foreign talent in America
The 4N Origin Story
In 2024 we published the first issue of 4N JourNNNNal, An Exchange of Foreign Origins. Printed as a limited edition risograph zine, it shares the 4N magazine origin story through the perspective of Special Special’s founder, Wen-You Cai, and the studio’s art director, Panny Chayapumh.
Wen-You Signs Letters
Everything at Special Special begins with a humorous take on a current musing or status quo, but through further discussion, we land in a compelling area where we can no longer no longer keep it from becoming a project. Living in New York, in a creative and vibrant international community, I am surrounded by visa applicants, and continuously requested if I could support their visa petitions through sponsorships and recommendation letters for their O-1 and EB-1 visa applications.
In the '80s, when my parents were living in Japan, they befriended an older Taiwanese entrepreneur who started a magazine called E 5 which translates to "International" Magazine. For every issue he would ask my dad to share images of his latest artwork and submit writing along with it. The publisher was connected to executives from large corporations like Mitsubishi and Toyota, and convinced them to submit ads for this magazine. Those executives were led to believe this magazine was a popular, widely-circulated magazine in China, when in fact stacks of the magazine remained collecting dust in the creator's closet. Everytime my dad saw the entrepreneur, he was asked to provide more content to be printed in the next issue, and to take home a stack of the magazines.
In the late '90s-'00s, my elementary school in New York produced an annual yearbook composed of cut-and-pasted pages for different classes, and a section of advertisements in the back. Looking back, this DIY style of WordArt and copy machine collage of the time serves as a trendy zine-like approach. I appreciated the miscellaneous contents of students' parents blasting congratulatory messages with their business card below, advertising their profession in case anyone was interested in a real estate agent or architect. Ads from neighborhood restaurants, psychotherapy offices, and dog-walking services, with cute scissor cut-outs of baby photos pasted over a letter size page were all part of the mishmash content constituting an archive of my elementary school years.
After graduating from college, many of my international friends began applying for the O-1 visa in hopes of remaining in their newly adopted country. They were recent college graduates immediately having to demonstrate that they match the level of an Olympic athlete, Oscar winner, or Justin Bieber. In my early twenties I organized an apartment exhibition for my classmates, and it became a significant CV insert for all three young artists, but in particular for one who needed an O-1. Alongside curating the show, I helped him sign an itinerary letter detailing how were to collaborate for the next three years on various hypothetical projects and a statement of a salary that I was to pay him (subject to change), to support his O-1 visa application.
Over the years, many of my friends, sometimes even distant acquaintances, would have similar requests. Upon agreeing to be bound by paper, I read through extensive petition and recommendation letters put together by their visa lawyers that inflate not only everything noteworthy the applicant has ever done in their life, but also all of my own life achievements, to situate myself in the high standing to help support their case. I realized the visa lawyers had written about me by scouring through my outdated website, and that was when I decided I, too, have to level up.
The international community is often open about sharing lawyer suggestions, and I found waves of friends using the same lawver for their O-1 applications. As I discovered the same write-up on different letters for different applicants, I realized it's not only time-saving for the lawyer but also for me. In turn I would recommend the same lawyer to other applicants based on their success rates and ease to work with.
Bragging is not natural for me, and I don't think it is for many people. Let alone needing to have a stack of published work and public exhibitions to demonstrate to an immigration adjudicator that you are a worthy and talented contributor of art and culture in the US. There’s a lot of uncertainty to this precarious process, and we hope that 4N becomes a community for mutual support, and a celebration of diverse and international talents.
Panny Asks for Letters
Late summer of 2023 is when Wen-You and I began talking about 4N as a concept and possible ongoing project that Special Special could produce. I had just submitted my documents with my lawyer to file for my third O-1 visa since graduating college in 2016, so the stress around the filing process was very fresh. What started as an on-going humorous "what if" soon became a real venture.
Since the spring of 2016 I've measured time in cycles of three years. I'm always aware of what year I'm on within a visa period, and during the cycle I am either tallying up projects in my head or trying to spot areas of weaknesses within my prospective application. As someone who leans on the side of being an over thinker, and an avid appreciator of a good six-month plan, it occasionally feels like the visa is running my life. To some extent, having this structure where every three years I gather “evidence” and examine all the projects that I have completed has been helpful in trying to maintain some sort of standard or work ethic for myself. However, at times I have felt a little disconnected from my creativity because I am constantly examining myself through the lens of a USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) officer, rather than someone trying to work on their creative practice. I feel this constant pressure to keep doing more.
I find it difficult to sit with the fact that outward perception really matters-as long as you meet the criteria and standard set by the USCIS you will be granted your O-1. Having so much of my existence depend on a criteria set by an external source rather than myself has always felt disheartening.
During my most recent visa renewal, a friend recommended a PR service that would create press pieces tailored for the O-1 visa to meet one of the qualifying categories (notable press). The service would pitch specific articles to news outlets and circulate them a number of times to increase your online visibility. Because I was trying to cover all my bases, I decided to use the service. It took three months for the articles to come out and when they did, I found that I couldn't bring myself to actually read them—for lack of a better term it felt awfully cringe. And I understand some of these feelings are probably specific parts of my personality reacting to the situation, but the friend who recommended the service also felt the same way. At most, I scrolled through the article very quickly, copied the link to an excel sheet that I shared with my lawyer, and exited the page.
The PR service was not particularly cheap, and it pained me that the final product was something I'd rather bury than share with friends and family. Between expressing my grievances about the situation and exchanging stories about visa experiences and recommendation letters with Wen- You, the concept of 4N as a community publication became a reality. At the heart of the project is a desire to foster and create a community and publication that would bring levity to a situation that is both daunting and stressful.
The visual branding around the 4N universe references the documents one would receive while filing their papers. The titular font used can be found in the heading of official government documents and notices, including bank notes. By borrowing visual language from these papers such as the watermark patterns (found on the ad pages) and official seals, we are gently poking fun at the absurdity of the situation while offering a service that strengthens an application. Flipping through the magazine, a reader will find a collection of ads that vary both in content and considered design. The differences are welcomed! The varying styles of approach illustrate a vibrant local community, and that's something we want to tap into with our ad program.
Feeling vulnerable and frustrated about a lack of control seems to be a common sentiment that arises during an application cycle. With this in mind, we try to give back some autonomy to our talented 4N contributors by having them show us how they would like to present their work within their feature. Each applicant submits a layout guide with images of their work using a baseline template that we provide and approves their feature before it goes to print. The goal is to uplift these voices and experiences to create a final product that we are all proud to share. Making a few new friends along the way is an added bonus. I hope readers are both delighted and humored by 4N as there are many lenses to view this publication through.
After three O-1 visas I have decided that I'd like to retire that label and move on to an EB-1 where I aim to be unremarkable/very ordinary for a little while—we'll see how that goes...;-)