The Abeyant Nursery is a collection of multi-disciplinary artworks that confronts my loss of personal identity due to various traumatic experiences from my childhood. Living under the rule of my strict authoritarian mother, dissociation of my inner psyche happened when I was very young.

Right was right. Wrong was wrong. There was no grey line. Any behaviours that were deemed unacceptable, I was physically and verbally punished for. I had to be the perfect boy in my mother’s eye.

The Abeyant Nursery aims to bridge the gap between my inner psyche and my external influences. Through the act of expression, I hope to reconcile and recover my autonomy.

—

Quinn Lum’s The Abeyant Nursery (2020) is presented at the 10th Singapore International Photography Festival as part of Shifting Images: Photography from Singapore 2000–2025, under The Stories We Carry.