TRUEORIGIN™
{雯}
Meryl YEO, Yawen
Artist, Composer, Entrepreneur
Singaporean
Ignostic. FreeThinker. Firmly Non-AI-driven.
Previously Mrs. SCHINDHELM nata YEO, Yawen. Meryl is my nickname since 2003 and has never been used on my legal documents. My mother is Mdm. Lam, of Nanyang in Singapore.
I said no to some people unless they were ready to negotiate and offer proper terms. I’m ready, some people are slow and need to learn if they want me to show up at all, much less be on their team. I’m patient. :) I can wait for the right offer.
Also, I own NoDamnPie.com. The email for that is hello@nodamnpie.com. Gmail was a tad too insecure, /unsubbed. I’ve never fallen seriously ill, I collapsed from overwork once in Australia in my late 20s/early 30s — 3 jobs, full study load (finance this time, didn’t go back to fashion as my fam situation changed), trying to launch my art career and find a footing. Full and almost instant recovery once a longtime dental infection was removed. Took a long time to raise my own funds and get on my feet. I’m not just a muse, I’m the artist.
Strictly no authorized representatives. If you are in possession of my sketches or writings, in any state of progress, please know that they are reported as stolen from my spaces that were locked and carefully secured, or on me at all times. Kindly contact me for an immediate return. Thank you.
I am currently busy and travelling solo for the next months in Switzerland. I work for myself and am on back to back business trips. I’m trying to get my own secure art studio now as I’ve never had any funds released to me that would’ve made it possible in the last years. I’m now in the midst of securing my own independent backing and commitments for my art & culture-related ventures, as I’d always intended. (And curbing a renewed urge to acquire mobile powerstations for surviving other people’s uninspiring disaster scenarios.) I will release details soon. Please contact me if you would like clarification on any matters, including my involvement in past projects and where I’m based. I may be unable to reply right away to enquiries but will do so at the soonest possibility.
I’m an independent writer and artist from Singapore, free of any false and/or external narratives, and until some years ago co-owner of a cultural business based in Basel which had nothing to do with my body of works. For some reason, I was never able to rollout my above-mentioned plans — which everyone who knows me, knew of because I was so active in the scene — although everything looked like it was geared up for me and for that purpose. I’m unsure why people who made those contracts for my IP never spoke directly with me, as I have no appointed representatives. I was pretty annoyed at the frequency with which I was being improperly assumed as an idle escort (I took down my social media to stop that nonsense), I was paying through my nose hardly to be associated with that kind of rubbish; the reality was that I was fighting damned hard to show up as a serious artist, get proper contracts & lawyers and keep my physical person & belongings safe; People could have easily clarified if that was what they wanted, but I guess their aim was something else. All my earnings came directly from those efforts. I was stopped from hiring an entertainment or any kind of lawyer due to how Swiss authorities registered my name when I arrived, for which I was subsequently denied corrections. No rights to my IP were transferred through contracts at any time. I’ve recently been granted a divorce and paid a fraction of what was owed to me, and am at present organizing and funding myself so that I can show up on the world stage. I have several projects underway and had to make unconventional choices to mitigate the theft and deliberate-administrative problem in Switzerland.
For better or worse, anywhere I go and no matter what, I get a compelling feeling that I want people to do well. I want to make sure they’re okay. But I need to make sure I’m on firm ground too, there’s no helping anyone when the ground is being burned out from under you. It’s easy for someone like me to transcend agendas and pigeonholes, but escaping them takes real physical work. Simply ignoring it exists is no solution if you want to go far in one lifespan. Ignoring problems is the drug you can afford if you have the luxury of staying put and never getting nowhere fast. I have no fear of radicals or cultists, it’s just endless excuses to treat people badly and take their work like mindless zombies. A complete waste of power.
Since youth, I noticed the lack of voices representing perspectives of mine and my local region and so I rose to the occasion. I saw that people were using our names, references or claimed to be speaking for us, but everything was overcast with an ‘accent’, like we were watching others tell us what we were, are, and what we should be, rather than the other way around. Somehow, we were never the ones on stage saying it. Our accent, it would seem, had an accent. Since the world claims a level of advancement which invites us to simply stand and speak up for ourselves, that is what I did and have done. To my surprise, people paid attention. However, I came to see how things were made less simple than the marketing would suggest. The irony was hardly lost on me, that those who claimed to be champions of freedom — freedom to be who you truly wanted to be, to fulfill your highest potential without restriction per se — now wished to add a clause that you had to want what they want. It’s like boring people trying to tell you you’re boring, unlikeable people wanting to be gatekeepers of what’s popular, people with no capacity for fostering life trying to define life and impose it on everyone. This was truly bizarre, not to mention Orwellian.
No one should be able to pretend that I was in a “coma”, earning income from dubious activities or being rehabilitated in Switzerland for the last 5 years, when I was being actively suppressed, had my independence and rights stripped from me and stopped from showing up using threats and coercion by those closest to me — to stop me from showing up in an art & literary career and take my IP without payment. If it was the business of anyone to find out, all they needed to do was ask me to explain and demonstrate my techniques. No one asked me. For instance — the winning piece that impressed judges and got me placed at RMIT Fashion in the 2000’s was a 2.5D fashion presentation with changeable coats on special sheets — which, I learned when I was told 2 decades later, is reminiscent of cel painting used by animators and ironically a technique oft miscredited to Disney. Nobody taught me how to do it or that it existed, I’d figured it out. The origins of how I developed my Freeform writing are also completely visible in my recent and present work. Any prominent writer — not a manager or guest writer, but a pro senior creative — in the field would be able to ascertain this in minutes.
I had to start from nothing after my family fell on hard times, but I thought I’d find someone to duke it out together with and make everything from scratch together. There was trouble being taken seriously, and no one wanted to work for anything anymore, everyone I’d met just wanted everything handed to them on a platter as though superior people fall fully-formed from the sky with no development trajectory. Evolution is treated with suspicion. When I came to Switzerland I had expected little, but it turned out worse than especially considering I’d shown nothing but goodwill apart from the basic protection and self-esteem a person needs. Exits were blocked by the time I realized what it was and by the way, the Yale hostage manual advises cooperation and to never attempt escape unless there’s a good chance of survival. Some of those last hands nearly killed me.
Switzerland has something similar to the US 4th Amendment, in Article 10 of the Swiss Federal Constitution which guarantees personal liberty for individuals and Article 13 which covers the “right to privacy” and protections against the “misuse of personal data”. Look up the full terms on the Swiss government website, if you wish.
I left Singapore after disagreeing with how it treats its homegrown artists, putting us under unqualified people pretending to “assess” us, as well as the extent to which it interferes with its citizens’ lives and affairs. I’m aware that we’re deliberately marked down to get our work for free when Singapore is super wealthy — self-advertised — and can well afford to foster its own artists, it just lacks real desire, leadership or ideas. More recently, some of us Singaporeans made successful efforts to effect social change for disadvantaged locals and racial/religious minorities, share our resources to make it possible for them to enjoy a better life & future on our soil. I never came to Switzerland only to be made to repeat what I’ve already overcome, I came to use my privilege rather than be forced to give it up and walk away with nothing.
Also, I’m given to understand that there are 2 people out there who are sometimes confused as me, both based in Australia with allegedly some similarities — one is my younger sister whose name rhymes with “hey”, another is a boomer who sounds Mainland-Chinese and has something to do with art management and own practice — if in doubt, I’m the one who never set foot in Hong Kong or Basel this year (I was stopped from doing so and suspect it was so they could donate my place to somebody else) and actually using my position to effect change and open doors for others rather than just sitting on it and obstructing others, and also the one with the body for modelling — not catwalk. I’ve never been a model nor signed away any rights. I’ve made all my social media accounts private to eliminate all doubt about my choices. I do intellectual work, have a distinct radio voice and speak in Received by default — not Australian although I can do a good one, not China. I can show up representing my own ideas in ways that strengthen my ownership of my own intellectual property. I can use a stage name in ways that add to my level of recognition, as opposed to ways that aim to remove it. It’s not hard. Just because someone wants me to be something for them, hardly means I am now automatically in an unknown contract to fulfill the role and/or activities they want. And once I find out this kind of contract exists and goes too far, they have no right to harm me and/or stop me from leaving. When I’m alive, they have no right to record or capture me in ways that let them move my name and assets around on documents, works and balance sheets as though I were dead or unable to give age-appropriate consent, and/to block me from leaving or engaging the necessary professionals to contest their ‘squatting’ activity, catch them red-handed and evict them. Every man, woman and child has this right.
I have never consented nor been approached to give consent to have any part of my likeness captured, recorded, and/or streamed at any time and/or in any way, including during my personal time, in or from my private spaces or during personal activities. I have never been properly engaged or compensated for my work. I am a writer and a digital artist who uses pencil, ink and a combination of elements and experimental mediums. I have original intellectual property. To my knowledge, I have never consented nor been approached to give consent to have my personal likeness as an adult recorded and/or used outside of one teen lifeskills coaching workshop I conducted (blurry video), an exhibition for airlines service staff and a special film event supporting autism. If anyone has evidence to the contrary please contact me so that I can make a formal police report for my own safety.
I said I was willing to help people find solutions. I never said I could be “jailed” in their place. It’s their debt. It can never be transferred this way. They will be found out.
There should be a higher criteria for who gets to present globally as leaders and helpers. If they are there just to sport the badge and title but have no genuine intent or capacity to fulfill the role, they should stop wasting everyone’s time and leave gracefully. Good leaders enable the rise of more superb leaders who want to help others become strong and lift the world from where they stand — rather than only beat others down to take what’s never theirs. And they should step aside to allow to ascend those who have done the inner work and are qualified, ready to usher the world into the next human evolutionary stage. Promoting and giving resource access to only actors who powder their face white with wig and say the lines but do no real work, or blind ‘prison guard’ followers for the purposes of beating others down, trying to ensure real leaders never rise by removing or corrupting all the resources meant and needed for them to move through the world and self-develop from when they’re children, putting the worst and most incompetent in charge of the best of us — all these are evidence of deeply unsuitable leaders in place. And when someone flies under their radar and succeeds to leadership, instead of acknowledging them they knock them back. These are the weak and myopic leaders sans all the priceless qualities that make a person great, who have no business being in that seat of power but expect others to donate their position and belongings to them. Simply removing the real leaders with substance because they want their voice and their stage, and giving their place and labour to puppets of weak or empty character, is no substitute for leadership strategy/qualities or a successful plan for the world order. Such backwards practices are incompatible with First World values and constitutions. They’re in leadership and governance not just an unethical PR-and-marketing company that’s all about the kickbacks. People who want to continue such “customs” are most welcome to conduct themselves in whichever third world countries support their monkey business, so that the real leaders will be allowed to rise to their earned seats globally in the First World. Leaders, who will naturally help their own and each other lift the world back into its rightful orbit and trajectory towards success. No one needs handouts when things work, and when there’s nothing stopping the right people from ascending to their rightful places.
I have no authorized representatives.
Culture holds a value that is priceless, unspoken. The storytellers from a community are the ones who lead the way, regardless of who wants the title or seat for themselves.
My work balances and attempts to bridge ‘impossible’ opposites — anarchy and monarchy, liberalism and conservatism, STEM and spirituality, and so on. Each original piece I bring forth comes from deep place of emotions and thought, of hardship and joys. The language inherent speaks of relationships and connections to the world around and the people in it. Some pieces are private — capriccio or capriccio? Others, I was finding a studio to finish them right up till I was displaced and had to extract myself from a bad situation in Switzerland. Plans kept being made then were cancelled, all the documents arrived wrong and due to sign on the spot. Things were made difficult if I said no — to diva behaviour, deliberately unsafe and unprofessional conditions, and so on. I said no, and was given trouble for leaving. My contingencies were barely enough for an escape even for someone with my background — there’s little more a civilian can do before they have to become professional. I was being told I should abandon my belongings and run; I took this as a self-confession from these individuals. I have eidetic unbiased memory (but via the feminine channels not the masculine ones), you’ll need to ask someone of that category what it really means and they normally explain nothing if you’re not one of us. It felt like business as usual for these people. I fought my way out and left through the front door WITH my belongings. Switzerland states it is against immoral activity, but despite a mountain of evidence to support my case, after years of finding independent representation I’m still trying to find even one person who will start an investigation/file. Virtually all the proper fact and identity verification processes are missing in this country. Their Swiss ID apps and essential services portals are a shell, frontend service personnel can only seem to relay to an unknown 3rd party to execute, none of them talk to each other or perform their advertised functions to any standard KPI.
Before that, I was getting ready to publish my own novels while offering creative workshops for all ages (art therapy), and lifeskills/confidence coaching for vulnerable teens. I’ve had a long career with companies that included Sun Microsystems, ABN AMRO Bank, Singapore Airlines, Vue de Monde, and Australian Property Management (APM), to name a few.
In Switzerland, they changed my surname without consent then issued my ID only a year later in a way that let them claim they never changed my name, so I had no way of finding out until I was unable to register my manuscripts at the copyright office because of it. Then all my documents arrived printing a different surname, authorities and professionals pretended not to understand how I was asking them to write my surname (“Yeo”, Literally 3 letters), and when I tried to leave the place. I was handling national and corporate databases for 3 years, with consistent customer service awards, there is no way any of them, and across all those seniorities, would have trouble knowing what I’m talking about. They then claimed I somehow agreed because they issued my 1st ID so late that I had to immediately send them a renewal form. When I persisted and began to write in fluent Italian, they started to use their own mistakes to say I was a different person. So I said no to this, and left. They tried to stop me, so it took about 3 years for me to leave instead of the usual 3 days to weeks. I was there on official invite, married to the owner of the house I then stayed in.
They said I could never win. But here I am, having swum against the tides, resisted the power of suggestion to be guided by the power of Vision, and swimming some more. I will never give up, and will find my way.
If you want something I’ve made and/or own, please contact me directly to obtain or loan it. I have transferred none of my intellectual property or rights at any time — while in the company, when I left the company, and anytime after I left the company — and I was not being properly involved. If that’s what people want, they could’ve explained that they wanted to use the place I had gained, the resources that I earned therefore belong to me, and ask me if I could let them have my seat for a time. They could’ve easily chosen to do things upfront and above-board, to negotiate. They never registered to book the space in Switzerland, they never obtained permission to do so — I did and received it, and I need to do my work here. And so the Swiss are unaware that any others are now using that place instead of me. Their eagerness to scam and cut out their own Singaporean artist — me — to get ahead ended up in them paying the wrong person for something that’s worth nothing, when if they’d negotiated direct with the artist all involved could’ve had a fruitful and honest outcome multiplied in time. Now all they’ve got are empty castings and no deal was ever made with me. Additionally, my sketches are all reported as stolen and I’ve been so public about this, I’m unsure how they can justify never checking with me. For people who call themselves exceptional, that was an exceptionally daft and blind move.
I have never sold my original pencil sketches or written drafts of my original compositions. If you have purchased them or paid to see them, please know that they are never-released material that I have reported as stolen and announced publicly to everyone on my contact lists. The police were given a detailed itinerary of stolen items — my sketches and sketchbooks, initial drafts of written material and manuscripts in their first fully copyrightable form — my original compositions, done in my personal style developed independently over years from my own observations of nature and direct lived experiences. If you or anyone you know have come into possession of any of the aforementioned items, they are stolen — kindly return them to me. The sketches show clearly my roots as a (High) Fashion major. They are in no way based on the work or themes of artists known or dead/alive. The writing has clear identifiers in linguistic structure and time period, because Singapore is a new branch and at no other time will people speak or write like us, the pioneer groups. Singapore has the world’s best administration by no margin of error. These will be found out, and held to the spotlight in future. I have never benefited from any inheritance. If anyone was that keen on obtaining my originals or unpublished works, they should have approached me. I’ve yet to publish them and have never offered a platform with a user login and t&c to access my works.
I’ve never forged or merely lifted anything. My works come from dreams, direct lived experience and complete visualisations in my mind’s eye, aided with techniques from performing arts. These are original connections as opposed to being based on any other people’s works or direction.
If an offer is insincere or deceptive, I move on. There’s no excuse for anyone to pay others to destroy a person’s life or career just because they’re unhappy that that person moves on and finds happiness so easily . Luckily, some of us have inside of us those priceless things that can never be destroyed, and can recreate paradise from within wherever we go. Even if you cut us to pieces hoping — fat hope — that we’ll never put ourselves back together again and rock too.
Under construction.
I was born in 1983 at Gleneagles hospital in Singapore as YEO, Yawen to Singaporean parents. I have been known as Meryl since 2003; As a nickname, it appears on none of my legal documents.
Historically, the men and women in our family had loved each other too much to allow any poor treatment. We have no need of coercion, or financial or sexual interest in people in order to have a desire to protect, care for and mentor them, and that is why we were often chosen. If there’s a flaw in modern systems of thinking, it’s the one that encourages people to think they can only profit by working against solutions and pitting good men and women against each other.
Growing up, I’ve never taken on debt products nor been in debt. In first world countries, it’s illegal to go after innocent kids for anything signed by their parents, deliberately introduce pests to pretend a regularly cleaned house is “dirty” as a prelude to justify illegal breaking and entering or/for theft, and so on. It’s also impermissible to put someone’s name on some form of unknown contract without their involvement or knowledge, then come after them in an attempt to get them to fulfill its alleged terms.
In 2019-2024 Ticino Swiss authorities apparently registered my married name as: Yawen SCHINDHELM nata YEO. However as I was not my husband’s daughter unable to give consent, the correct way to record my name but denied by authorities is Yawen YEO Ehename SCHINDHELM.
I hold a Singapore passport, which fortunately bars dual citizenship so things are clear. If/when I come back, my arrival would have to be redone in a neutral Swiss state, respecting Federal law and the status of the Singapore passport.
Although I have no plans to go to Basel this year, I may visit in future. My experiences still seem to meet expectations when acquired independently.
I am fortunate enough to be able to make a living from my craft, which in turn enables me to travel and live the way I envision. I am currently following my own blueprint, after all as they say, if you have to be apparently only a tragedy, a donor/martyr or anything but yourself in these endlessly-unhealthy people’s musical story, then decline to sing their chorus and get yourself on track soon as you can. Why even pay it much heed, when one is busy carrying out their highest dreams. Take back the reins, write your own story and carry/live it out, too. As for the rest — All will be revealed in time. The best reply to those who act like they can only profit if you are miserable, is to pick yourself up, keep going and then show up by succeeding on your own terms. And finding real joy, too, in spite of all.
I speak in Received Pronunciation and have no children. My Chinese name is the one that looks popular, has to do with elegant cloud patterns or raining culture/ literature.
To those who did help me dodge some bullets — thank you.
As someone from a family of several opposite worlds, I never stopped believing I am more than any limits that can be placed on the human imagination, and that I can live out my highest dreams and best life. I’ve tended to believe the best in others and treat them as equals, as long as they were reasonable.
Despite some opposition to my career and avant-garde nuances in expression, I fortunately enjoy a strong constitution and robust mind from a combination of choice and background. I had been in several industries and had offers in modelling (competition & jobs), TV & Radio, frontend big tech/telco and 5-star hospitality including Singapore Airlines (with their friendly hiring policies for air hostesses, of course — it’s not the job that’s tough it’s the people. Most people never survive that environment) before making the conscious decision to pursue my dreams as an artist and original composer in my own right; I‘d been gradually building up to the right moment to do so, having accumulated my own complete works since age 7 ready for copyrighting, publishing and archiving.
I strongly disapprove of those who hurt others on purpose, or find excuses to hurt innocent parties over things done by other unrelated people or groups. Debts can never be transferred this way, the initiators will owe the unrelated person(s) to whom the transfer attempt was done. Especially those who go after innocent children of a family to humiliate them for what they think their parents did, then act like they did something wrong for saying no.
As an apolitical Humanist, I specialise in restoring the human connection in a self-conceived, spontaneous mode of art therapy, and have made a living from this on top of my art and writing. My Substation workshop “The Art of Zinemaking” enjoyed a higher than expected turnout. There, I taught the Stream of Consciousness technique to participants, demonstrating how they can tap into their own creativity no matter who they are and what they do. At the end of the session, each participant went home with their own book which they had created based on their own desires, hopes and dreams.
As a neo-digital artist, my works demonstrate the Freeform interaction of all-sensory perception at the intersection of 2D and 3D, suspended in and through a free falling higher dimensional framework. It expresses the earliest clear form of its type of legacy encryption.
As a writer, I distill human perception down to its elementary forms, marrying reality with imagination and revealing all the threads and seams. As for the stories, you’ll have to read the books when they’re out. :)
At present I am traveling solo. It’s nice to see that my new experiences and interactions have been closer in line to what I’d achieved in Melbourne.
I was in a gifted arts stream and school theatre with contributions that once broke a tie for gold. Later I was one of two international students of the year to be accepted into RMIT’s Fashion degree. My first fiancé was a fashion photographer. My first husband was a quantum chemist turned performance art manager then filmmaker/artist. We are divorced and have no children between us.
As an independent author, I excel at Freeform original compositions; I use my early background in performance art to instruct and narrate my own material, but I’m more of a visual wordsmith who can see and hear their own works — fully composed, complete works done ‘live’ and in one go, layered, with few corrections if any.
Art is my response to the world around rather than any one single or group of individual(s). For instance, out of many pieces I once live-composed a short prose piece about an Apple tree in a garden, direct-to-German using a good translator. I’m told it was fluent. Only one person has ever been audience to that, they were anonymous and also very surprised. I understand that when you’ve met one person of a kind, you’ve met one person. I do occasionally use my web space as a thinking-out-loud pad. If this place looks busy, it’s just evidence that I’m busy for myself. I have done no commissions.
My art & writing explore existential questions, remove intellectual “dialect” and make allegedly difficult ideas accessible to the layperson. I reckon people know it when they see it. And that’s the part which scares the fearful within the establishment, that people can and do wake up.
Personally I prefer working out real solutions and egalitarian relations, and that’s where I’ve invested most of my time.
My favourite animated character is Moro.
I’ve recently seen how my work receives positive valuation when published in others’ camp. This proof and insight into those opaque arenas has steeled my resolve to continue forth and confidently shape my life’s work. It took a while to get to this point.
I’d been lucky enough to develop independently going through a girls’ school in Singapore during my formative years.
Despite initially feeling a lack of support for local talent or serious girls’ education back home; in a strange twist, this turned out to possibly have been the best thing that could’ve happened for me in the circumstance — no external interference in my development, and being told I was expected to do well without assistance! It let me explore the way I wanted and take ownership of my own ideas early on. When doubt can be at least as strong as the positive responses, it can be quite a challenge. It’s always a privilege to meet other individuals on this path.
People notice and are inspired by those who show up in this crazy world as owners of our own endeavours and assets, yet still manage to be kind, connected and creative.
Plans change for the better whenever you put yourself in charge.
Some of us require no belief to exist as we do, doing what we do. When people behave like a pack of hounds, you just have to be the better ‘man’. The best answer to naysayers is to succeed on your own terms.
As a popular motto goes — The best is yet to be! :)
Words mine.
Meryl YEO Yawen 2025 All Rights Reserved.
***I have sold, leased nor transferred NONE of my IP or copyrighted works, whether in part or full, I remain sole owner and handler of my undivided estate.***
I give no consent to donating my writing/art, works, likeness or any part of my property to train anyone, their algorithms and/or AI.
I’ve never been based in the US or UK and have never lived there. Only in Melbourne Australia and Singapore. Just returned from Switzerland.
None of my completed works have ever received official “valuation”. I’ve only ever been irregularly paid living allowance, but never for my work or time. I’ve never been a technical assistant and have my own contacts and business/ social connections but I was denied funding raised in my name for my projects although I was ready with my own team to start.
Here’s to what and whom lasts, all the way down memory lane.
The world is my Oyster.
