Singapo-ren Love

Swiss-bound, Coptic Stitch, Hardback Photobook, 200mm by 250mm (WxH), 132 pages. First Edition. Includes two sealed B&W darkroom handprints made on Ilford MGFB Warmtone semi-matte paper on p.97 and an essay: "A Guide to Looking Inscrutably".

Singapo-ren Love (2025) explores Jay Lim's intersectional identity, travelling between stories of love and intimacy. Created primarily in London and Singapore, the publication incorporates notes, letters, receipts, memorabilia, and photographs of his daily life, both candid and staged. Further curated through a lens of reflection and resistance, the series navigates tensions present within his relationships, including but not limited to those between family members, lovers, and the places that shape his 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, Lim constructs not only a personal archive of queer life rendered through opacity but also a visual language for feeling, remembering, and resisting.