Born 1973, Chiang Mai, Thailand

Som Supaparinya creates evocative, poetic allegories. Her works – primarily taking the form of installations, videos and digital media – examine themes of injustice and political corruption. Through historical, literary and political lenses she examines the impact of human activities on their fellow humans and on fragile ecosystems. She is interested in revealing structures and systems of power and control, questioning the source and nature of public information. After graduating with a BFA in painting from Chiang Mai University, Supaparinya earned a postgraduate diploma in Media Arts from Hochschule Fuer Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany. As an artist with a global outlook, she has exhibited internationally.

Shooting Stars (2010) reflects on the capacity of the media and the state to distort and even erase politically inconvenient events. As she travelled by train between Chiang Mai and Bangkok a few weeks after the military crackdown, Supaparinya shot video of streetlights flashing past her window. When this footage is turned upside down, and accompanied by mysterious, metallic clinking sounds of shells falling to the ground, the lights become ambiguous and eerie. Are they shooting stars, or tracer bullets arcing across the night sky? The work is intended as a subversive but carefully coded memorial to protesters shot as they slept in the dark streets of the city.

Paradise of the Blind (2022) takes its title from a book by Duong Thu Hong that is banned in Vietnam. The artist creates a “library” of books that are banned in Thailand and in other parts of the Asia Pacific region. Piles of shredded paper allude to the active suppression of ideas, and empty bullet cases suspended from the ceiling remind us that censorship is a facet of oppressive authoritarianism that is often accompanied by other abuses of power.