A Drink With: Amy Daml Founding Member and Contributor to China Art Aggregator Website Loreli

Tom Arnstein | Mar 23, 2017 8:30 am | Add a comment | 1991 reads

We recently caught up with Amy Daml, co-creator of the art aggregator website Loreli (WeChat ID: loreli-china) which compiles some of the best written, visual, and recorded arts from across the country and often features in-depth interviews with the artists behind them.

You can catch Daml and the Loreli crew at their fourth Affordable Art Market this Sunday, March 26, and keep an eye out for a photography contest in the coming months.

Tell us a bit about yourself. What brought you to this beautiful and hazy part of the world?
I’m Amy! I came to Beijing to spend a year being a radio host at China Radio International (CRI). That was five years ago. Since then, I’ve not only hosted radio shows and podcasts, I’ve also been a writer, a voice actor, a softball player, an occasional drunk, and most recently I started a website devoted to most of those things.

How was Loreli conceived? When did you all meet up?
It was June of 2015 that Hannah Lincoln, Kerryn Leitch, and I first met at Hot Cat Club. We didn’t really expect something like Loreli to come out of that meeting, but we knew that we wanted to do some kind of creative project together. After talking about the need for more voices in the arts scene here, we decided to be the ones to try to open up that platform. We have added several more Loreli curators since then: Angela Li, Max Berwald, Daniel Rothwell, and Deva Eveland.

Is there a favorite spot of yours and the Loreli crew to hit up? Why?
Despite the fact that it is a terrible place to get work done because all of our friends hang out there and the cocktails are too damn delicious, we always seem to have our Loreli meetings at Más. I guess it’s pretty good motivation to get work done quickly so we can get on with the drinking.

What’s the worst drinking experience you’ve had in Beijing?
Ugh. I had absinthe for the first time at Modernista and didn’t know how to take it, so we drank it straight with no sugar or water. Ten minutes later it hit us all like a ton of bricks. I got in a fight with my friend, started crying, and got super lost trying to get home.

If you could choose anyone living or passed to be your drinking buddy for the night who would it be?
Well, I read that the Queen Mother had eight drinks a day, lived to 101, and was adored by the British public. I admire anyone who can day drink adventurously and still get shit done. I would like to learn her secret.

What do you think is missing from Beijing’s nightlife scene? What do you enjoy about it?
To-go cocktails! While I have been known to dabao a cocktail every now and then, there’s like no McDonald’s of cocktails ... although when I phrase it that way it sounds pretty disgusting.

If you got lost in the Gobi desert for four days and you returned to Beijing parched and desperate for liquid, which specific drink (and bar) would be your choice to recuperate?
I would most definitely have to stop in to Arrow Factory and get a Seeing Double IPA, as I assume that would cancel out the double vision I would undoubtedly have from dehydration. Then I would head to Temple to dance to some local rock bands until I was dehydrated again.

Stay up-to-date with all the team’s events and content via the Loreli website (loreli-china.com) or subscribe to their WeChat account (ID: loreli-china) by scanning the QR code below.