| EXHIBITION |
Solo
Mom of Alterity
Wilawan Wiangthong
Opening reception and performance : Sunday, 18th August 2024 from 7 PM onwards At MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai
MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum cordially invites you to the opening of Mom of Alterity, a solo exhibition by artist Wilawan Wiangthong, to be held in Galleries 5 and 6 of the museum on Sunday, 18th August 2024, from 7 PM onwards. The opening reception will feature a live performance of the same title by Wilawan Wiangthong, accompanied by students from the Department of Performing Arts, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Khon Kaen University. This exhibition and performance were first showcased at MAIELIE, Khon Kaen.
Wilawan possesses a work process that is highly versatile, including fieldwork in which she disguises herself as various forms (and shapes). The artist crafted a narrative through her meticulous observations of the areas surrounding Khon Kaen province, seeing the exploitation of land and cities alike for the sake of profits for both the state and private sector. The project illustrates the symbiotic relationship between the landscape, wildlife, flora, and other non-human entities, all of which have a crucial role to play in the process of communal evolution and production, creating environments that aren’t merely objects or background dressing as seen by the eye.
For this exhibition, Wilawan has chosen a form that exposes her naked body, symbolizing the numerous construction projects that continue endlessly. Her work is inspired by Japanese manga, video games, all the way to feminist interpretations of a ‘cyborg’, all working alongside the colloquial notion of “Mom of Alterity”, “Mother”, and “Mom”, referring to figures of authority, motherhood, and the concept of a ‘creator’. Meanwhile, the concept of ‘otherness’ is multiplied by the outward appearance, the otherness that the artist has clad herself in by mimicking the mannerisms of cows through machines, or the emulating of female cows spurred to motion through human hands. The altered form also arouses the artist to embrace sexual roles, exploring the hidden identities hidden deep within others, all of which possess a tangible and imagined aspect.
The artist has collected a diverse collection of media and materials, weaving them together to produce works and household objects from the waste materials provided by the environment of each location she visited. The results are sculptures created from animal dung, bones, molted snakeskin from a farm, all the way to common garbage. Furthermore, Wilawan also directed a performance against a backdrop inspired by science-fiction, as well as a photography and moving image collection that presents the moment of first contact between different species who have traversed wildly different times and spaces, rousing the imagination with the story of a group of scientists who return to earth to find the dark future of a distant era.
Mom of Alterity not only challenges the imagination of audiences through a wide array of mixed-media art displayed in this exhibition, but also promises to broaden viewers' experiences by connecting each audience member with the essence of "Mother" and "Mom" through various public programs, including a book launch and screening program.
About the artist
Wilawan Wiangthong (B. 1990, Wang Sa Phoong, Loei)
Wilawan is a daughter of the Esan region, born into a multi-ethnic area criss-crossed by routes of trade and commerce. This background provides her with a creativity unbound by medium, using fieldwork to explore the limitations and capabilities for human adaptation by cutting through the boundary between nature and man-made creations. Wilawan explores how people are driven by objects of entertainment and technology, borne from cultivation and propagation, pointing to the potent human desire to modify the nature of animals, plants, and micro-organisms for their own gain, all while ignoring or outright harming them. Wilawan gained these insights through her observations of an abandoned bird-breeding site, an island where people abandoned their dogs, and an elderly snake wrangler working for meager earnings.
In 2023, Wilawan produced the work “The Cowgirl”, a robot-like machine controlled through mixed-media materials to mimic the mannerisms of a cow. The work was the result of her exploration of the lives of cows and buffalos in the livestock market dominated by male ranchers, located on the outskirts of Khon Kaen city. Wilawan aims to reveal the obscured role of agriculture assets, referencing the process of birth from a female body and how the genitals of female cows are considered factors of production.
Furthermore, Wilawan is also interested in the art of ‘transformation’ or the assuming of a different identity. From genetic psychology, oral history, or passed-on knowledge that allows her to relate back to a memory regarding family, a cross-national romance that is not only extensively parodied and retold in popular media, only to convey the malleability of people on a personal and social level. Wilawan counts these countless stories as the foundation of knowledge that drives the senses, as these small knowledge sets can be disseminated into daily life, be they through spiritual rituals or popular performances.
Wilawan has participated in exhibitions both domestic and international, including: “The Cowgirl” in S.O.E. 2: We Trade Everything, Khon Kaen (2023); “Crossplay” by Phifa collective, Kultx Khon Kaen (2022); “The Enclose Garden Multi Sensory” with “Heroines' Wave”, an international female artists collectives (2021); “The Blue war” series at the Day of Performance Art in Lviv School of Performance Art, Ukraine (2019); “Gruel series” at the Undisclosed Territory Live Arts Festival #11: We Are What We Eat Performance Art Festival, Indonesia (2018); “Balloon series” at the Xi'an International Performance Art Festival, Xi'an, China (2016); and most recently, “Into the Oyster Heaven” at Siao-Long Cultural Park, Tainan, Taiwan. Wilawan completed both her undergraduate and graduate level studies at the Department of Mixed Media, Faculty of Painting, Sculpture and Graphic Arts, Silpakorn University.
About the curator
Worathep Akkabootara (b. 1976, Si Sa Ket).
Worathep’s interests cover writing about, researching, and curating works of contemporary art, with a focus on the dynamics and provincial-level crises that occur in daily life. He was the co-curator of the Thai Pavilion of the 55th Venice Biennale (2013), where he curated the work “Safe Place in the Future (?): Dystopia Now Utopia Never” alongside Somsuda Piamsumrit. His curated works have been exhibited at The Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok (2012) and the Museum of Art and Design (MACD) at the Lasalle College, Manila, the Philippines (2013). Worathep has also recently published his own research journal ‘S.O.E: We Trade Everything’ on the Singaporean Art & Market website (2023), as well as the paper “Knowledge Production Studies Initiative: Southeast Asia as Method” in collaboration with a research committee under the patronage of the Social Research Institute, Chulalongkorn University (2022).
Installation View
