Courtesy Bangkok Art Biennale
ArtReview, in partnership with the 2024 Bangkok Art Biennale, presents a panel discussion during the opening week of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia that features artists from Southeast Asia. This panel, as an official Collateral Event, will address the ways in which migration, fluidity and a strong relation to the natural world continues to shape culture across one of the world’s most diverse and dynamic regions.
A discussion between Apinan Poshyananda, Jakkai Siributr, Kawita Vatanajyankur and Priyageetha Dia will cover a space in which cultures alien and local have continually mixed and battled over – and in which art takes on divergent forms: what effects have war, colonialism and ecological vandalism had on the way that Southeast Asia engages with the world today?
Moderated by ArtReview‘s Mark Rappolt.
When: Thursday, 18 April, 14:30–15:30
Where: Palazzo Smith Mangilli Valmarana, Venice, Italy
RSVP: The event is free and open to the public but registration is required. Reserve your seat here.
Speakers
Apinan Poshyananda is the Chief Executive and Artistic Director of the Bangkok Art Biennale and The Spirits of Maritime Crossing exhibition. Poshyananda has curated and directed international art exhibitions across Asia, Europe, USA and Oceania including Traditions/Tensions, New York; Thai and Australian sections, Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art; Asian section, São Paulo Biennial; Thai section, Istanbul Biennial; Commissioner, Thai Pavilion, the 50th, 51st, and 52nd, International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia; and Tout à Fait Thai, Paris.
Jakkai Siributr is known primarily for his textile and embroidery works, and his installations increasingly offer an element of audience
participation. Siributr is concerned with the unofficial histories that have been written out of Thai accounts as well as intersections between personal and regional histories. He creates a delicate tension between his subject matter – ongoing conflict driven by nationalistic discrimination against minorities – and the visual sensuality of his chosen form and materials. More recently he has begun to work with various communities through embroidery workshops including refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border and the USA. He also worked with the Thai Government on a social developmental program in remote areas of Mozambique.
Kawita Vatanajyankur is a media and performance artist whose practice examines the slippage between the human manual labor and the machines. In her performative work, she transforms herself into hybrid machine and organism, like a cyborg, and puts her body into arduous positions with repetitive actions. Her work signifies the exploitations, oppression, physical endurance and violence within the hidden background of modern labor in the world of fast consumption. In her works, she usually becomes a site of tension for the struggle of human existence against becoming a simple cog within a machine. Her
performative oscillation of human and machine is suggestive of the
possibilities of human evolution and transformation.
Priyageetha Dia works with time-based media and installation. Her
artworks look into speculative narratives on Southeast Asian plantations, which she views as sites for recovering stories of resistance. Her research interests also include nonlinear narratives intersecting digital semiotics, migrant histories and our relationship with the non-human. Her recent exhibitions have been held at Singapore Art Museum (2023); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kerala (2022–2023); La Trobe Art Institute, Australia (2022); National Gallery Singapore (2020) and ArtScience Museum, Singapore (2019). Dia was an Artist-in-Residence at the NTU Center for Contemporary Art Singapore in 2022 and the SEA AiR – Studio Residencies at the Jan van Eyck Academie in the Netherlands in 2023.
The Spirits of Maritime Crossing is an official Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia and will run from 20 April through 24 November at the Palazzo Smith Mangilli Valmarana. Participating artists include Marina Abramović, Priyageetha Dia, Yee I-Lann, Chitti Kasemkitvatana, Pichet Klunchun, Jompet Kuswidananto, Nakrob Moonmanas, Bounpaul Phothyzan, Alwin Reamillo, Khvay Samnang, Moe Satt, Jakkai Siributr, Trong Cong Tung, Natee Utarit and Kawita Vatanajyankur.
The Bangkok Art Biennale, Nurture Gaia, will take place between the 24 October and 25 February. The BAB was founded in 2017 with the mission of transforming the bustling city of Bangkok into Southeast Asia’s leading contemporary art destination. Taking over public spaces around the city including temples and heritage sites over the course of four months, the biennale highlights the city’s charm by bridging Rattanakosin cultural heritage with Bangkok urbanism.
