Shawn Chia

thoughts & words

Having spent my formative years away from home, I tend to draw muses from my ‘nomadic’ background and experiences. The vagabond relationship I have adopted with various communities allows me to observe their people and cultures with an outsider’s perspective. Through my works, I call to attention the subtleties and nuances that many locals have come to normalise in their communities. Many of my narratives isolate these specificities — usually deconstructing from personal experiences and/or testimonies, to then reconstruct them into standalone scenes and stories. I ultimately see my process as a cathartic means for reliving and rewriting my eventful growing up experiences — one could even suppose my narratives as a personal means of living vicariously through a fantasy childhood that could have been.

Shawn was born in Kuching, Sarawak. He completed his secondary and junior college years in Singapore, before moving to Baltimore, Maryland to further his studies and apprenticeships in film and video. Since leaving his home in Malaysia, Shawn has travelled and stayed across several countries including Singapore, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam, China, and most recently the United States of America. Toeing the line between prodigal son and nomad, Shawn builds his narratives around coming-of-age experiences influenced by his own adolescence. After graduating in May 2020, Shawn plans to return to Singapore to work on his feature film and celebrate the holidays with his friends and family again.