'ISLANDS IN THE STREAM'

Presented by Alamak! Project

Alongside 57th Venice Biennale

Arsenale Docks, Venice, Italy

Vatanajyankur’s exploration of everyday and domestic work is particularly telling of her Thai homeland. A place where, for many, daily chores aren’t always assisted by electronic contraptions or white goods but are time-consuming, physically exhausting, and often the task of women. The videos’ happy, day-glow colours, dark humour and undercurrents of violence, however, bring a universality and contemporary currency to the historical trajectory of feminist art. It is telling, for instance, that she describes her performances as “meditation postures”, when such gruelling tests of resilience and fear are quite the opposite of what we might think of now as zen. But, for Vatanajyankur, extreme physical endurance offers a way to free herself from her mind: a mechanism to lose her sense of being. This deliberate objectification, she says, turns her body into sculpture.

On the occasion of the 57th Art Biennale in Venice, Alamak!project, in collaboration with Concilio Europeo dell’Arte, presents “Islands In The Stream”, a group exhibition curated by Yoichi Nakamuta and Stefano Casciani, featuring the works of three young Asian artists: Anon Pairot, Kawita Vatanajyankur and other guest artists. Developing their artistic practice across many medias, the three artists’ work is marked by a their concentration on topics of representation/discussion of social, cultural, even scientific issues. At Alamak! Pavilion in Venice, the artists display a solid ground in the stream of liquid society, where people can stop, stand and understand their condition by looking at the meaning/significance of the world.