The Cockroach Diary is a song cycle for voice and guitars, both classical and electric. Written during a period of personal and artistic stasis, the work explores an artist’s search for their own voice, tracing a journey that is at once vulnerable, intimate, and resilient. The songs place the guitar not just as accompaniment but as a central storyteller, creating a dialogue between voice and instrument.

Released in May 2025 as an album of 11 songs, The Cockroach Diary has always been conceived as a live performance. In concert, the songs are connected by theatrical interludes, dialogues with a cockroach, that guide the audience through a narrative that begins in intimacy, adventures in outer space, and ultimately returns to Earth. Live performances have confirmed the work’s resonance, highlighting its reflection on ambition, creativity, and the small encounters that shift perspective.

Building on this response, I am now developing The Cockroach Diary into a fully immersive performance in collaboration with visual artist and filmmaker Xuan. She will design projected visuals that interact with and deepen the narrative, blending realistic and abstract elements into a cohesive visual language. To introduce the performance, we are also creating a ten-minute puppetry prologue accompanied by live music drone, providing a poetic entry point into the work’s dreamlike world.

With support from the Augustine Foundation, a significant portion of the visual production is already secured. I am now seeking additional funding to complete the project, covering the remainder of Xuan’s work, the prologue, and outreach to help bring audiences to the premiere.

The immersive version of The Cockroach Diary is planned to premiere in October at National Sawdust, a venue known for supporting innovative, interdisciplinary performance. This project represents an important step in expanding the expressive possibilities of the song cycle through music, text, and visual media, and lays the foundation for future performances in alternative spaces such as planetariums and galleries, reaching audiences beyond traditional concert settings.

Your support will help realize this next stage of The Cockroach Diary and bring its full visual, theatrical, and musical world to life.