production design
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studio@abbeylings.com
Named one of IF Magazine’s Rising Talents in 2026, Abbey won the 2025 international Webby Award for Best Art Direction (People’s Voice, Film & TV) for To Become A Lion (dir. David Ma), commissioned by the Powerhouse Museum and acquired by The New York Times Op-Docs. She was also nominated for Best Emerging Production Designer in 2025 by the Australian Production Designers Guild for Eat Up! (dir. Yuxin Cao). Her work has screened internationally at the British Film Institute, Raindance Film Festival, Palm Springs International ShortFest, BeyondFest LA, Sydney Film Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, St Kilda Film Festival, and has been featured by NOWNESS, Directors Notes, and MUBI.
Her feature debut, French Girls (dir. Hyun Lee, co-designed with Cynthia Lu), premiered at Sydney Film Festival as part of Sartorial: Fashion on Film, alongside works by Sofia Coppola, Jia Zhangke, Agnès Varda and Frederick Wiseman. Her short film work includes The Shirt Off Your Back (dir. David Robinson-Smith), an AACTA-nominated film that received multiple international awards including CICLOPE Asia-Pacific Best Short Film & Grand Prix in Direction, 1.4 Awards Gold Award, and Stellar Film Festival Best Short Film, and was named Top 10 Best Australian Films of 2025 by The Curb; The Eviction (dir. Rebecca Metcalf), winner of Best Australian Short at Melbourne International Film Festival; Spiders on My Lashline (dir. Grace Tan), which premiered at BFI Flare and screened at Raindance; and Agoge (dir. Ven Giaouris), which screened at Palm Springs International ShortFest.
Abbey’s broader art department experience includes Furiosa (Warner Bros), working under Academy Award-winning production designer Colin Gibson and supervising art director Jacinta Leong, alongside productions including Year Of (Stan) and Who Do You Think You Are Australia (SBS/Warner Bros Discovery).
Her upcoming projects include feature film Crashout (dir. Nick Annas, produced by Deadhouse Pictures & Umbrella Entertainment); and the shorts So Beautiful (dir. Sofya Gollan) and A Guy Who Likes To Walk (dir. Kate Hardy).
Having migrated to Australia in 2015 from an old border town in Hong Kong, Abbey brings a cross-cultural perspective to her design work, and is fluent in English, Cantonese, and professional Mandarin. She holds an Masters of Production Design from AFTRS, a GradDip in Environmental Science from the University of Sydney, and a BA in International Relations & Environmental Philosophy from Swinburne University as a DFAT New Colombo Plan Scholar. Abbey is an accredited member of the International Production Designers Collective.
Press
Interview with SBS Cantonese
Article with IF Magazine