Kawita Vatanajyankur, Lady Coconut, 2023, Single-channel video, 8:08 minutes
Booth A7 | Spot P6
Nova Contemporary is pleased to announce its participation in Art Jakarta 2023, with a solo presentation of works by Kawita Vatanajyankur and an installation by Nipan Oranniwesna at Art Jakarta Spot.
This presentation showcases a cycle of all-pink works, exemplifying Vatanajyankur’s long-term investigations of feminism, labour, technology, and the ways these realms intersect. In three videos from her Air series (2021), Vatanajyankur uses domestic and bodily analogies to address the state of polluted air. In her signature approach, she mobilizes her own body as a primary medium, transforming herself into a vacuum and inhaling large amounts of dust. Using the machine as a stand-in for the human body, she not only considers the exhaustive role of female labour within domestic households, but also produces an acute critique of the industrial destruction.
Her laborious performance-video methodology continues in Lady Papaya (2023) and Lady Coconut (2023), with the latter work debuting on the occasion of the fair. Both videos are set in the kitchen, which has been traditionally viewed as a feminine domain. Rendering her body as part of various culinary tools, she engages in exhaustive and repetitive actions, reflecting on the way female bodies are undervalued and exploited by patriarchal norms.
Kawita Vatanajyankur was born in 1988 in Bangkok, Thailand, where she lives and works. She received her BA in Fine Art from RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia in 2011. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held Museo Novecento, Florence; Jim Thompson House Museum, Bangkok; Albright Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; and Nova Contemporary, Bangkok. Her work has been included in the Bangkok Art Biennale, and in group exhibitions at MadeIn Art Museum, Shanghai; JUT Art Museum, Taipei; Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Busan; Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel; Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin; and Saatchi Gallery, London. Her works belong to the collections of MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), Bangkok; and the Akeroyd Collection. Vatanajyankur will participate in the upcoming 11th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT11) in Brisbane.
Neither Body nor Soul (2018) arose from Oranniwesa’s radical re-examination of a journey he took across the Thai-Myanmar border in 2015. This voyage traversed the physical dimensions of the border, extending to the lives and relationships of people migrating between the two countries. Oranniwesna uncoveres these experiences in his installation and renders them physically tangible. Comprised of 6 wooden sculptures, the work outlines the map contours of the Thai border, examining the legitimacy of man-made partitions, dissecting and materialising them for the audience to traverse in new ways.
Nipan Oranniwesna was born in 1962 in Bangkok, Thailand, where he lives and works. He received his BFA in Graphic Arts at Silpakorn University, Bangkok and his MFA in Printmaking at Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music. Solo exhibitions of his work have been held at Nova Contemporary, Bangkok; 100 Tonson Gallery, Bangkok; and Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama. His work has been included in group exhibitions at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; Jim Thompson Art Centre, Bangkok; Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), Bangkok; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; and Seoul Museum of Art, Seoul. He participated in the Singapore Biennale and the Busan Biennale, and represented Thailand in the 52nd Venice Biennale. His works belong to the Collection FRAC Lorraine, Metz; and Singapore Art Museum, Singapore. Oranniwesna will take part in the upcoming 2023 Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.
