Malaysian multidisciplinary artist and textile designer Shan Shan Lim joined us for a 3-month residency from March to May 2022.
About The Residency
Shan Shan approached her time with us as an opportunity to explore the boundaries of her artistic expression. Not content with limiting her work to a single medium, she experimented with cotton, wool, popsicle sticks, rice paper and linoleum. And the experimentation did not end there. Having foraged rocks from our forest at Rimbun Dahan and a local waterfall, she extracted earth pigments to concoct her own palette of natural paints. Taking the experiment further and drawing on her background as a weaver, she hand-dyed yarns using the Malaysian ikat technique and created a series of textile pieces. The resulting mixed media collection, a journey from the tangible to the abstract, is titled ‘The Shadow Self’.
“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” — Carl Jung
We all carry a shadow. It represents a side of ourselves we choose to ignore. By focusing on the shadows cast by the world around her, Shan Shan unearthed her own shadow. For inspiration, she did not have to venture too far beyond her studio. Rimbun Dahan’s wealth of local flora offered up silhouettes of seeds, leaves, flowers, branches and herbs. The collection encourages us to find beauty in the overlooked shadow world that is tied to every blade of grass and every human being that walks the planet.
About The Artist
Shan Shan Lim (b.1993) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Her works draw inspiration from a spectrum of cultures from her childhood in Malaysia, schooling in India and her bachelor’s in London. She specialised in weave and print at Central Saint Martins, earning a degree in Textile Design. She returned home to Malaysia where she founded her eponymous design studio in 2017.
Her work is a means to make sense of her environment, both physical and incorporeal. They reflect a search for harmony and spiritual freedom in a world of chaos. Each piece is a question simultaneously posed and answered, using intuition as her guide.
Her most notable exhibitions include Lokal Helsinki (2021), The Back Room (2020), Deck, Singapore (2020) and Bank Negara Malaysia (2018). She was also selected for the Art Girl Rising residency at Sepat House (2019).
Website: https://www.shanshanlimstudios.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shanshanlim_