She’s his limbs, he’s her eyes. It’s love and art in full colour for this couple with disabilities

It is not very often that couples who have disabilities get married or even stay in a long-term relationship in general.

Throw in the mix of working closely together in the same space for a common career and the chances of friction and tension arising can be high.

Yet, for Mr Shalom Lim, 29, and his girlfriend Amanda Yip, 38, they are embarking on the road less travelled and they believe their relationship is "rare and unique" enough to help them grow as a couple in life and at work. 

They met about two years ago and swiftly realised they completed each other to make a whole.

Ms Yip is visually impaired and Mr Lim, who has a debilitating muscle-wasting disease caused by a mutated gene, is wheelchair-bound and requires a ventilator for daily living.

Their common goal now as a couple is to realise their dream of being artists and to create art for other people with disabilities to behold and experience.

And they are doing this through a startup called Rebirth Ensemble.

When I met them, they were completing an artwork showing an iceberg emerging from the sea under a starry night sky.

It might look like any ordinary oil pastel piece created during an art jamming session, but it was painstakingly drawn and required laborious back-and-forth communication.

I watched as Mr Lim, whose arms rested limply at his sides, guided Ms Yip on where to place the pastel colours. He also prompted her on the direction and intensity of her strokes on the canvas. 

Mr Lim said: “When the two of us are together, we feel that disability is not even present, because we complement each other’s abilities.” 

Ms Yip agreed, saying that they form a team because they help each other move around and do things when they are together. “I can be Shalom’s arms and legs and he can be my eyes.”

On working together for their startup, Mr Lim said: “Traditionally, art is something that is seen but not experienced by the other senses. So the fine-art space, from my perspective, can be rather elitist and inaccessible. We want to change that.” 

Rebirth Ensemble was launched in October last year and is supported by Temasek Polytechnic.

It is a studio that aims to make fine art accessible to everyone with special needs, regardless of whether they have vision, mobility, hearing or sensory issues.

The couple’s first goal is to create art pieces that are three-dimensional and can be touched by visitors, so that those with visual impairments such as Ms Yip can appreciate them.

In the years ahead, they also plan to work on pieces that can be heard, smelled and perhaps even tasted.

They recently submitted a proposal for next year’s Singapore Art Week in January and hope to showcase a debut exhibition there.

FINDING THEIR WAY AROUND BEFORE THEY FOUND EACH OTHER 

Ms Yip was born with a genetically-inherited eye condition called retinitis pigmentosa. This causes light perception problems, tunnel vision, as well as colour and night blindness.

Her vision was not always terrible at the start but it gradually worsened over the years. 

Ms Yip went to a mainstream secondary school. In 2010, she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from England's University of London offered by the Singapore Institute of Management. She then worked in corporate jobs for 12 years. 

In the past, she could still see bus numbers without any assistive aids when buses approached bus stops.

However, from the age of 24, she has been using a long-distance magnifying device to read bus numbers and sometimes, she asks for help from other commuters. Navigating public spaces requires her to use a white cane as well. 

This vision loss also affected her ability to create art, a hobby of hers that made her “feel free”, she said. When she was around 28 years old, she realised that she could no longer see pencil marks on the paper or differentiate colours, especially if they were subtle and light.

“I felt really depressed because I felt like something was taken away from me. When I tried to draw, I realised that I couldn’t do the same as what I could do before.

“It was stressful to draw something and in the end, it still didn’t look like what I imagined. That was frustrating. I felt like giving up, wondering why I was straining and squinting my eyes, trying to do something that I couldn’t do by myself anymore,” she said.

As for Mr Lim, he has Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which is a degenerative neuromuscular condition that causes muscles to weaken, starting with the limbs, followed by the heart and lungs.

He was diagnosed when he was three months old. At first, he could still walk like any other child but at the age of six, he started needing a wheelchair. He had to use a ventilator by the time he was 15 and he still relies on it today. 

As a teenager, he studied at Temasek Polytechnic’s School of Business. 

After that, he took up a degree course on criminology and security from England's University of Liverpool that was a collaborative tie-up with the Singapore Institute of Technology. He wanted to learn about social justice issues because his older sister works as a prosecutor.

To accommodate his lifestyle, he did the degree course on a part-time basis and took about six years to finish it, graduating in 2021.

Like Ms Yip, he also loved to draw and paint. He took up the hobby when he was a child after seeing his older brother Isaac do it.

In 2007, he published a collection of artworks entitled Live Your Dreams, together with his brother's book of art titled Not a Wasteland, to raise money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association (Singapore). His brother, who also had Duchenne muscular dystrophy, died in 2019.

When he was 17, Mr Lim had a near-death episode with pneumonia and after he recovered, the strength “just completely left” his body, he said.

“I did try, but it became very demoralising because I could no longer hold a piece of paper in the way I wanted to or make the strokes that I wanted. It was all just very haphazard and I didn’t feel empowered at all,” he recalled.

The traditional way of painting and drawing was, therefore, challenging for him and Ms Yip.

SPURRED TO FULFIL EACH OTHER'S DREAMS

Things changed when the couple met at a theatre workshop in March 2023 and fell in love. Working together was like a “renaissance” for their artistic dreams since they could finally make art again, as Mr Lim put it.

This was the reason why they named their startup Rebirth Ensemble. "Rebirth" pointed to them being able to produce art again, while "Ensemble" means it is a collaborative effort. They felt that it perfectly articulates their relationship.

So far, they have completed two pieces of art, which are images of trees drawn using oil pastels on canvas. They spent about three sessions of an hour each over the span of a month to complete each artwork. 

Hearing this, it struck me how drawing and writing on paper is effortless to me, but is a process that requires much planning, intention and perseverance for the couple.  

When I asked why art means so much to them, Ms Yip said she believes that art is not just colours put on a canvas. She thinks that each brush stroke and colour choice has intention, tells a story and carries meaning.

Mr Lim chimed in, saying that art has always been a therapeutic medium for him. He also witnessed how his late brother, who had autism in addition to Duchenne muscular dystrophy, suddenly “blossomed” when he was exposed to fine art even though he could not communicate in words.

“For us as a differently-abled artist couple, we strongly believe that we have a very compelling and inspiring story to tell,” Mr Lim said of him and Ms Yip.

“And we want to use that story not just to inspire change or make a positive impact, but also to enable us to have a future together and leave our legacy behind.”

THEIR HOPES FOR REBIRTH ENSEMBLE

Mr Lim is the managing director of Rebirth Ensemble and Ms Yip is the lead artist. The startup rents an office space in Temasek Polytechnic at a subsidised rate.

This venture is more than just a business to them – it is the foundation on which they hope to build their careers together, a means by which they can be independent and financially self-sufficient.

“Even if I were to work in a full-time job – but I can’t because of my condition – we still won’t make enough to be able to meet our relationship goals in terms of getting married, settling down and having our own place,” Mr Lim explained.

Ms Yip said that through this startup, they hope to support themselves and potentially their parents.

Keeping a full-time job was not easy for her.

She had worked full-time in human resources for more than 10 years in three companies, but she was mostly in contract positions and found it difficult to secure a permanent role. 

Recalling her first job where she worked for 3.5 years, she said that the position underwent a revamp, which meant that she had to travel more between two premises. 

She explained to her manager that travelling was not straightforward for her, then asked if the job could be redesigned so that she could do more administrative and desk-bound work instead. 

“Despite how much I expressed that I would like to stay, the senior management just said 'no'. I did not feel respected because I voiced up my challenges and they thought that there was nothing up for discussion. So I really felt discouraged,” she added. 

In her experience, she also felt that she was always viewed as a “lesser” worker whose efforts were not really recognised or seen. 

In Mr Lim's case, he still has a part-time job as a marketing communications assistant at Shalom Medcare, a medical transportation service for wheelchair-bound users or those with special requirements.

The company's name is a pure coincidence – Mr Lim does not own the company or have personal ties to it.

Right now, he works from home on this part-time job. Going full-time would mean he would have to travel more frequently, which would be tough for him due to reduced stamina from his medical condition.