Nat Li Lin Steinhouse 丽琳

I value connection, emotional honesty and community as routes to liberation.
My work combines three different practices – music making, performance and Traditional Chinese Medicine massage.

I am Chinese Malaysian and white, transmasc, autistic and middle class.

Photo by Jesse Glazzard

Let me tell you – interactive online performance

Nominated for NOVA award for innovation 2021

Some people are more loyal to brands than the human lives the brands are destroying!

I called for friends and strangers to send me “something you wanted to tell someone but never did.”

I turned their words into advertising-style musical jingles and shared them online without revealing the sender’s identity.

My aim was to create an opening for people to express their true feelings, using the coldness of consumerism to mask our fear of vulnerability.

All jingles are available for free mp3 download

Rat salad · Thanks For Your Opinion But I Think My Sandals Are Cool

Rat salad · I Would Never Take Anything Back From That Time

Rat salad · I Wish You Were Excited For Me Instead Of Ashamed Of Me

Let me tell you (phase 2) – stage show at Camden People’s theatre

Fictionalised documentation of Let me tell you – interactive online performance

Recipient of the 2022 Camden People’s Theatre seed award

The central character wishes to build a portfolio of jingles so they can be hired to create them for brands.
They believe it will help them get to know their ancestors and form a deeper connection with an emotionally distant lover.

Let me tell you is a piece of experimental theatre combining monologue, live electronic sound, improvised movement and toothpaste adverts.

Billed as a “jingles musical”, the show fictionally documents my process of creating the interactive online performance of the same name.

The show examines the interplay between colonial capitalist desires for status and the isolation and genuine desires for connection at its root.

It also focuses on the visceral bodily experiences central to our existence.

It follows a character who, inspired by their favourite toothpaste brand, aims to achieve success within the world of advertising, believing it will deepen their connection with their ancestors and love interests.

The character makes advertising jingles using a mysterious fluid in a jar that allows people to create music by swishing it in their mouths and spitting it out.

It was devised with a team of collaborators, including Yuki Nakayama, Matisse Ciel Pagès and Maria Kontouli.

Cabin – installation and performance

Part of INTRA (depend on me bby), an exhibition and fundraiser organised by Camp Trans at Ugly Duck

The cabin holds for us what we can’t hold anymore and are ready to meet.

Poster designed by Yaya Wang

Cabin was devised, built and performed by Streams, a collective formed of Yuki Nakayama, Matisse Ciel Pagès and me.

As an installation, Cabin was a space that visitors to the exhibition could enter to grieve lost friendships using ritual objects, a notebook and soft private place to feel.

As a performance, Cabin was an honest expression of grief for past friendships.

During the performance, we opened the physical cabin space so the audience could see inside.

In turn, Yuki, Matisse and I entered the cabin to publicly perform an intimate private grief ritual.

I make music under the name Rat Salad

I sit still, I do not move, but still, it moves.

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I use voice, violin and electronic sounds to make songs out of the sensations in my body.

I like to combine directness and clarity with listening and questioning, warmth with coolness, nostalgia with attempts to surprise myself.

I have performed both alone and collaboratively in venues and events across London, including Bar Wotever, Runt of the Litter, Peng Femme jam, Sound Art Open Mic, Free Range Cabaret and Knickers Cabaret.

I recently collaborated with Frankie Tuffragette, recording and improvising strings on her upcoming album Grave.

We have performed a set of songs from the album at the Prince of Wales in Leyton.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Massage

Self-acupressure workshops and consultations

Acupressure is a special interest for me, and reconnecting with an ancestral practice moves me.

Trained formally in massage at London School of Massage and tui na at Asanté Academy of Chinese Medicine. Professional experience in acupressure massage at Xu Clinic and in my private practice.

Knowing about acupressure and how it works is empowering. It's a medical system that allows us to direct and experience our own healing.

It's a good way for us to take care of ourselves and each other.

I have delivered acupressure workshops with Camp Trans, Neuromancers and the Cambridge for Palestine encampment, outlining the basis and workings of Traditional Chinese Medicine, my own understanding of practising a traditional medicine in the west, and different acupoints and how to use them.

I have also given individual acupressure consultations and massages at Egúngún tattoo studio, Queer Cafe Takeover, Trans Sauna, Bitten Peach Cabaret, Open Barbers' fundraiser for Falasteen, Migrant Connections Festival and Hackney divest encampment. I give solidarity massage and acupressure treatments monthly at the Museum of Homelessness.

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Nat Li Lin Steinhouse 丽 琳

I value connection, emotional honesty and community as routes to liberation. My work combines three different practices – music making, performance and Traditional Chinese Medicine massage. I am Chinese Malaysian and white, transmasc, autistic and middle class.

Let me tell you – interactive online performance

Nominated for NOVA award for innovation 2021

Some people are more loyal to brands than the human lives the brands are destroying!

Nat Li Lin Steinhouse 丽琳

I value connection, emotional honesty and community as routes to liberation.
My work combines three different practices – music making, performance and Traditional Chinese Medicine massage.

I am Chinese Malaysian and white, transmasc, autistic and middle class.