Dharlaine Kate Madriaga

Miss King of the World explores an inner battle of cultures, where Western and South-East Asian standards and values compete for attention, childhood nostalgia, and a common shared feeling of “never wanting to grow up”.

The protagonist of this story is an ex-child-pageant-queen turned teenage girl who craves self expression without the pressures of conforming to an idealised image of herself to fit into her engrained judgement of culture. So, wrapping her belongings in a piece of cloth at the end of a stick, she runs, and finds herself in a world without adults. A world without external influences, just her, her creativity, and what seems like an endless supply of… cardboard?