Communication Design School of Design Singapore

Shayne Phua (She/Her)

Shayne studied Fine Arts and majored in Ceramics. Her works were exhibited in a few galleries in Singapore, such as Chan + Hori Contemporary, Gajah Gallery, etc. In 2019, Shayne was an Artist in Residence at Zentrum für Keramik in Berlin and Guldagergaard International Ceramic Research Center in Denmark.

In 2020, she had her debut solo, ‘Sehnsucht’, which acknowledges the existence of complex and indefinite emotions and the longing for nostalgia in our current age of rapid change. The show also questioned the pressing need to learn from and remember the past to understand uncertainties. The works are now documented on Shayne’s website.

Shayne embarked on communication design studies as she recognises the growing importance of being well-equipped with or in the know about Digital Media (or print), and its issues in our Information Age.

Contact
shaynephua@gmail.com
S.Phua1@student.gsa.ac.uk
shaynephua.com
Insta@shaynephua
Projects
Where Do People Go?
Genie–Unbottling Emotions
Let’s Read Together Campaign
2019

Where Do People Go?

This book is made to express the beauty of afterlife beliefs from different cultures and religions. It also includes my family narratives surrounding the death of our loved ones, which reveals some fascinating circumstances of life after death. The use of colour pencils for illustrations is to manifest the innocent quality of having faith, which I find heart-warming. All in all, I hope this book encourages readers to see beauty in religious beliefs that contradict with theirs or death rituals that are bizarre because they are rare; and to see the charm in diversity.

Genie–Unbottling Emotions

Statistics have shown the number of male suicides doubling that of women in Singapore. From the 400 suicide cases recorded in 2019 from the Suicide prevention service–Samaritans of Singapore(SOS), two out of three people were male.

Females have been dismantling their biological gender from the perceived feminine roles, it is also time for men to redefine masculinity.

A progressive masculinity can help to create a safer community. This is why we need Genie. Genie is a non-profit organisation, advocating gender equality and working to unlearn social concepts of masculinity, through research, education, training programmes and specialised support for boys and men towards mental health.

 

Let’s Read Together Campaign

Let’s Read Together campaign reimagine reading as a social activity by providing a platform for children age 11-13, to always have a companion they can share the experience of reading with. The aim is to make reading a pleasurable activity and help children pick up a good habit of reading.

The children will have to download the app. Once they sign up, they can either create a group or join an existing group. Next, they draw a name to be their recipient. On a selected date, the children will pass the book they have selected from the library to their friends. Even though they have to return the books in the end, what will be kept as a gift is the book inscription card.

2019

2019 is a partial fiction book. This book is my way of encapsulating the overwhelming events after the beginning of the pandemic in 2019. The words in email format are my thoughts, and recollections of experiences from the events that followed the outbreak of Covid-19, whereas the handwritten text are fictional thoughts inspired by a collection of real events, through news, social media, and hearsay.

The doors act as dividers between my experiences and the thoughts of fictional characters. They are also expressions of being confined indoors in contrast to being forced outside the home or away from home in the migrant workers’ case.