Presence/Absence – Shankar Laxminarayan and Shawn Lim
A collaborative exhibition by two photographers, Shankar Laxminarayan from Penang, and Shawn Lim from Singapore, featuring analogue photographs from a current zine release that both photographers have put out.
They will also hold an analogue-only (film) Photo Walk around George Town (details here), and a photography sharing session where participants can bring their photographs, to share and talk about (details here), and a cyanotype workshop (details here).
Shankar (@shanxography) has spent two decades behind the lens.
What started as an impulsive choice during a trip around New Zealand with two friends became a 20-year journey into visual storytelling.
Born and bred in Penang, his surrounding environment is his canvas. Everywhere he’s lived around the world, he has stories, and a series of photographs to bring it to life.
His work spans two decades of structured shoots and pure impulse, focusing on arts, culture, and candid human emotion. For Shankar, a photograph needs a reason to exist. Looking beyond the frame for hidden symbolism, he captures the chaos and movement of a single moment to make it come alive.
What’s a photograph if it doesn’t excite all of your senses?
Shawn
Shawn Lim (@filmonegative), is a Singapore based photographer whose work is rooted in observation, atmosphere, and the quiet moments that often go unnoticed.
His practice explores themes of presence, absence, solitude, movement, and human connection. Drawn to fleeting gestures and imperfect moments, Shawn approaches photography as a way of preserving what may otherwise disappear- a feeling, a memory, or a moment suspended in time.
Through his work, he invites viewers to look beyond what is immediately visible and find meaning in the spaces between what is present and what is missing.