Singapo-ren Love with G. (2025)
Installation, 1137mm (W) by 800mm (H)
Digital C Type Print, Lustre, framed.
Photobook, 200mm (W) by 250mm (H)
Singapo-ren Love is a series exploring my intersectional identity as a gay Singaporean man. Created primarily between Singapore and London, the work explores themes of love and intimacy through notes, letters, receipts, memorabilia, and photographs from my daily life. Further curated through a lens of reflection and resistance, the series navigates tensions present within my relationships, including but not limited to those between family members, lovers, and the places that shape my sense of self. Along with the essay A Guide to Looking Inscrutably, Singapo-ren Love explores how inscrutable looking, a non-pragmatic way of seeing, can function as a quiet yet powerful form of resistance when applied to photographs. In doing so, I constructs not only a personal archive of queer life rendered through opacity but also a visual language for feeling, remembering, and resisting.
Project Gallery
Singapo-ren Love book flip-through
Behind the Scenes: Research and Testing
The installation was conceived to complement the publication's underlying theme of family. It aimed to recreate the dining room in Lim's family home, inviting audiences into an intimate and domestic Singaporean space for conversation. Lead image was printed in A0 as a Lustre Digital C-type print. Test strips below the print are of different papers (Lustre, Matte, Extra Matte, as well as the Hahnemüehle Photo Rag 308gsm paper) to see which paper suited the image and concept best.
In sequencing Singapo-ren Love, I aimed to reflect the complexity of my identity as a gay Singaporean man. I was intentional about avoiding a straightforward narrative, as my lived experience is far from linear. Initially, I explored symbolism to convey nuance, but I soon realised that relying too heavily on it could make the work feel inaccessible. The process became one of balancing clarity and ambiguity, crafting a visual language that invites interpretation.
Copyright © Lim Jun Hao, 2025