Charmaine Poh

Singapore

Series: How She Loves

How She Loves is a series of collaborative portraits featuring queer female couples in Singapore, where homosexual relations remain illegal. Made within a studio, the portraits consider the performativity that queer individuals adopt as a result of societal codes, and the world they wish to reside in.
Using wedding props such as bowties, flowers, and veils, the couples play dress up, interacting with matrimonial tropes and constructed gender roles. Projected onto the backdrop are their parents’ wedding portraits, a visual reminder of the heteronormative histories that have shaped many LGBTQ people’s lives, and a juxtaposition to the future they hope to create.
This series was first initiated through the Exactly Foundation in 2018.