On 29/07/21, Foreign Correspondent featured an important investigation of the political situation in Myanmar. Parts of the film were made in collaboration with 882021, one of the artists who participated in our most recent show, Fighting Fear: #whatshappeninginmyanmar.
The story features one of our public program’s guest speakers, Manny Maung, alongside the brave members of Gen Z standing up to the military Junta, and delves into the corruption that bankrolls Myanmar’s military.
Read the accompanying article here.
Fighting Fear - Hung Up
Each week, two best friends explore Sydney's thriving art scene with a no-required-reading conversational style. Hung up is recorded on location at free art shows.
1.13 Fighting Fear - 16 Albermarle Newtown
Matt Sitas
This week we visited @16albermarle in Newtown to see Fighting Fear. The team at @16albermarle worked closely with @myanmart in Yangon to produce the work in this show.
We talked about “the feed”, provenance and how art amplifies political imagery.
The artists we talked about in this show were @hkun_lat, @bakakaza, @richiehtet, @soeyunwe and @emily_phyo and @bart_was_not_here. Audio included from music videos by @88twenty21 - watch the full videos on their Instagram.
This is the last episode of the season! And this was one of our favourite exhibitions. The show runs until the 5th of June, big recommend.
Thanks for listening!
Listen to the podcast here.
Fighting Fear - New Mandala
Fighting Fear: #whatshappeninginmyanmar
8 May - 5 June
16albermarle Project Space, Sydney
Fighting Fear is an exhibition presenting a unique cross-section of the social activism prompted by the coup—an outpouring of passionate anger and disappointment, and a hardening resolve not to be cowed. It is staged in association with Myanm/art, a contemporary art space in Yangon, and has been curated by Myanm/art’s founding director Nathalie Johnston. Some of the artists show at Myanm/art (Bart Was Not Here, Soe Yu Nwe, Richie Htet) while others are part of the broader scene in which Myanm/art operates (Emily Phyo, Kyaw Htoo Bala, Thee Oo). Some are well known in their own right (Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, Hkun Lat), others work as street artists (Baka), graphic designers (Ku Kue), rappers or animators (882021), and have felt compelled to respond to events.
The majority of the artworks did not begin life as artworks. They were responses to be carried in marches or posted on social media, and have been contributed by the artists to this exhibition to spread the word about what’s happening in Myanmar. They were assembled digitally by Nathalie in Yangon and downloaded in Sydney for commercial printing.
At the request of the artists, 16albermarle have editioned the individual works and they will be for sale at the exhibition or from on their website. With widespread unrest and no tourism, Myanmar’s art scene has closed down and artists are struggling to put food on the table. After the cost of file preparation and printing is deducted, proceeds will go to the artists. Fighting Fear will be opened at 3pm Saturday 8 May and will run until Saturday 5 June.
Read the full article here.
Pieces from Berlin - Video
Artist Talks : Bussaraporn Thongchai
Bussaraporn Thongchai Again, and again in the Counselling room 2021 drawing on paper, 112 x 150 cm
Pieces from Berlin - New Mandala
Dr Elly Kent
Pieces from Berlin: Bussaraporn Thongchai
27 MARCH — 24 APRIL 2021
16albermarle Project Space, Sydney
An exhibition dedicated to all the women who immigrated from war, poverty and gender inequality in their motherland
In 2015 Thai artist Bussaraporn Thongchai relocated from Bangkok to Berlin. Once settled she began working in a small shelter home providing services for migrant women from Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe who had been the victims of human trafficking and the sex trade.
Pieces from Berlin is the outcome of three years in the shelter, showing works that document the women’s stories and experiences as they passed through refugee case procedures and began rebuilding an identity for themselves. As a migrant herself, struggling to learn a new language and find a place in a new country, Bussaraporn connected with these women and what they were experiencing and feeling.
Her large, stylised drawings in black pastel on paper starkly illustrate the women at various stages of their journeys – pregnant, hungry, homeless, bearing the burden of unpaid domestic labour, travelling with a small child, always conscious of being different and an outsider, a target of racial vilification, a slave.
The artworks are set in the Ban Ying Women’s Shelter, “Ban Ying” being the Thai phrase for house of women. It was founded in 1988 when a group of social workers realised that increasing numbers of Thai women who were working as prostitutes in Berlin were not doing so of their own accord but were being forced to do so. Escape for these trafficked women was more or less impossible because there was no safe place for them to go where they would be out of reach of the pimps and traffickers.
Her experiences as a language mediator in Ban Ying influenced Bussaraporn’s thinking and her art. Her focus broadened from an earlier, more personal interest in gender, sexuality and relationships to a concern for the women she was working with, and a desire to use her art to bring their plight to a wider audience.
Bussaporn’s artist statement speaks of the confluences between her own experiences of dislocation in Germany and the enormity of the challenges her clients faced:
“An anonymous shelter hiding in a normal residential building. It is a place where my Self-Observation Process began intensively and continuously. There is a long narrow hallway which leads you to many separate rooms on each side. Behind their doors are the several lives of women and children who experienced violence, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Well, but here in this house we call them ‘Clients’.
They came from different countries, speak different languages, have different backgrounds and believe in different gods. I observe them and see distinctions and similarities I can relate to. I see the difficulties they have in getting along with the unknown culture and social system, trying to adjust, to compromise with themselves and with the others, tackle obstacles and face prejudice and discrimination. Simultaneously, they have to recover both physically and mentally after their traumatic experiences.
For someone from a third world country like me, it is hard to believe that these things happen in Germany, a developed country and a country that sees itself as an exemplary democracy. At the same time, it’s also a source, transit and destination country subject to trafficking in people, and where the number of reported cases of racial discrimination is still continuously increasing. In this sense, the trauma doesn’t seem to go away but double.
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While the ethical and political questions are constantly and often fiercely being discussed and reflected outside the shelter home, I still accompany these women and their children everywhere as usual. My self-observation doesn’t seem to be any less but expands in many directions. The state of being nobody, neither an artist nor whoever I was before, has transformed me into being just a human who wants to approach the basic needs and at the same time fight for my rights and the dignity of being a human, the same as you and others.
Before I started to work on this series and brought them back to Thailand in 2017, I asked myself: “What would happen if I bring all these stories back to where I come from? The place that I’m not able to stop looking at and thinking of. If a small piece of the Berlin Wall can be sold as a tourist’s souvenir, I too can bring back these stories I collected, as pieces from Berlin”
The first iteration of Pieces from Berlin was presented at ARDEL’s Third Place Gallery, Bangkok in March 2018.
Six were subsequently purchased by the Bundeskunstsammlung (Federal Art Collection) of the Federal Republic of Germany. The six remaining works are being presented at 16albermarle Project Space along with six new works produced by the artist in 2020.
The artist: Born in 1985, Bussaraporn Thongchai is a Berlin-based Thai artist known for using her life events as part of her art practice. Drawing on her childhood experiences in a patriarchal family, Bussaraporn questions gender inequality in her society and illustrates this through provocative drawings and paintings. More recently she has expanded her personal practice by addressing broader socio-political issues. She has had six solo exhibitions since 2010 and her work has been included in group exhibitions in Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK and Australia. She was included in the Bangkok Art Biennale Escape Routes2020.
The curator: Haisang Javanalikhikara studied media arts, contemporary art and curatorial practice for five years in the UK. Returning to Bangkok she worked at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre from 2012-2018, while studying for her DFA from Chulalongkorn University. In 2019 she was appointed a lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, where she’s a director of her faculty’s gallery and co-learning space CU Art4C, founder and editor-in-chief of the multimedia e-magazine Teleaesthetics (teleaesthetics.net) and currently developing the first Master of Arts in Curatorial Practice degree to be offered in Thailand.
Read the full article here
Pieces from Berlin - SBS Thai Radio
Pieces from Berlin ศิลปะจากความทรงจำในบ้านช่วยเหลือเหยื่อค้ามนุษย์
ศิลปินหญิงชาวไทยถ่ายทอดความทรงจำจากประสบการณ์ทำงานช่วยเหลือผู้หญิงเหยื่อค้ามนุษย์และความรุนแรงในต่างแดน ผ่านนิทรรศการศิลปะร่วมสมัยซึ่งกำลังจัดแสดงที่เมืองนิวทาวน์ในซิดนีย์
คุณบุษราพร ทองชัย (เดือน) ผู้สร้างสรรค์ผลงานภาพวาดในนิทรรศการศิลปะ Pieces from Berlin มาบอกเล่าเรื่องราวเบื้องหลังแรงบันดาลใจ ความเปลี่ยนแปลงครั้งใหญ่ของชีวิตหลังตัดสินใจย้ายถิ่นฐานไปเยอรมนี จนได้มีโอกาสพบปะใกล้ชิดกับหญิงผู้อพยพที่ตกเป็นเหยื่อการค้ามนุษย์และความรุนแรงในดินแดนห่างไกลจากบ้านเกิดเมืองนอน
แม้ต่างชาติต่างภาษาก็เชื่อมถึงกันได้ด้วยความเป็นผู้หญิง เกิดเป็นภาพความทรงจำจากความผูกพันที่ถ่ายทอดออกมาในผลงานสะท้อนประเด็นสิทธิสตรีและปัญหาที่ผู้หญิงผู้อพยพย้ายถิ่นจำนวนไม่น้อยต้องเผชิญ ผ่านมุมมองของศิลปินที่ได้ไปสัมผัสกับประสบการณ์ของผู้หญิงในบ้านพักฉุกเฉิน “บ้านหญิง” ในกรุงเบอร์ลินด้วยตัวเอง
นิทรรศการ Pieces from Berlin คัดสรรโดย ดร.ให้แสง ชวนะลิขิกร (อิ่ม) และคุณ John Cruthers จัดแสดงที่หอแสดงงานศิลปะ 16albermarle project space เมืองนิวทาวน์ รัฐนิวเซาท์เวลส์ ระหว่างวันที่ 27 มี.ค. – 24 เม.ย.
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Visions of Light - Look At Art เสพงานศิลป์
“This series of exhibition presents the artist's work through a process of drawing, which conveys the story through the lines. Although each of them having different response ideas and emotions, but they use the same method in terms of expression. The artwork’s outcome is characterised by contrasting emotional lines, which induces the audience to explore their own emotional state through the artist's lines.”
“นิทรรศการชุดนี้ได้นำเสนองานของศิลปินผ่านกระบวนการจากการวาดเส้น (Drawing) ซึ่งการถ่ายทอดเรื่องราวผ่านลายเส้นของศิลปินแต่ละคนก็มีการตอบสนองทางความคิดและความรู้สึกที่แตกต่างกัน แต่เพียงใช้วิธีการแสดงออกในรูปแบบเดียวกัน ภาพผลงานที่ออกมาจึงมีลักษณะของเส้นที่ให้อารมณ์คนละแบบซึ่งชวนให้ผู้เสพผลงานได้สำรวจสภาวะทางความรู้สึกของตัวเองผ่านลายเส้นของศิลปินไปอีกด้วย”
Click here to read the full review
Visions of Light - Bryce Watanasoponwong
Visions of Light - Exploratory Forms of Drawing from Thailand
by Bryce Watanasoponwong
Visions of Light Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, Jiratchaya Pripwai and Trinnapat Chiasitthisak
“Few, if any, art forms can match the personal connection of a drawing. This basic art form allows artists to shed many of the accoutrements of other forms and make immediate markings that create a unique vision. Vision of Light is a new drawing exhibition that celebrates this intimacy and the exploratory style of Thai artists working in the form.”
Click here to read the full article
Visions of Light - SBS Thailand
‘Visions of light’ exhibition : An interview with three Thai artists and curators by SBS Thai Radio
นิทรรศการศิลปะร่วมสมัย Visions of Light ผลงานจาก 3 ศิลปินไทย อิ่มหทัย สุวัฒนศิลป์ จิรัชยา พริบไหว และ ดร.ตฤณภัทร ชัยสิทธิ์ศักดิ์ คัดสรรโดย ดร.ให้แสง ชวนะลิขิกร และ John Cruthers เปิดให้เข้าชมที่ 16albermarle project space ในเมือง Newtown ซิดนีย์ ระหว่างวันที่ 6 ก.พ. – 6 มี.ค.นี้
Click here to listen the full interview
Visions of Light - Asian Studies Association of Australia
Exhibition of Thai contemporary artists
Visions of Light
Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, Jiratchaya Pripwai and Trinnapat Chiasitthisak
Opening day Saturday 6 February 2021
6 February – 6 March 20
Visions of Light presents new work by three Thai artists with a commitment to exploratory forms of drawing. Imhathai Suwatthanasilp works in dense black graphite to produce works with a deep black patterned surface reminiscent of her finely wrought sculptures made from human hair. Jiratchaya Pripwai’s fine linear approach suggests light, billowing forms that fold and collapse upon themselves. Trinnapat Chiasitthisak, trained as an architect, employs heavy ruled ink lines to define ambiguous architectural spaces. In seeking to create a larger space for reflection around drawing, the exhibition explores drawing as artistic expression, but also as innate language and potential in human beings. By the simple act of looking at a drawing one can see both inwards and outwards, immediately encountering the drawer’s relation to the world.
Click here to read the full article