Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook

Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook is a conceptual artist who lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand. She is internationally recognized for the work she has produced based on interaction with the bodies of the recently deceased. Her work focuses on a cultural segment which is not well understood, showing the links between life and death, links that she feels are much closer than we imagine.

She has exhibited on a number of occasions at the National Gallery in Bangkok. She has also has also participated in various international group shows, including: ‘TRA – Edge of Becoming’, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy; ‘Video: An Art: A History’, Singapore Art Museum; ‘Air Hole: Another Form of Conceptualism from Asia’, National Museum of Art, Osaka, Japan; ‘Beauty of Distance’, at the 17th Sydney Biennale, Australia; ‘Wind from the East, Kiasma’ Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland (2007); ‘Dirty Yoga’, Taipei Biennial,Taiwan; ‘Six Feet Under’, Fine Arts Museum Berne (Switzerland); ‘The Pantagruel Syndrome’, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy; ‘Poetic Justice’, eighth annual International Istanbul Biennial, Turkey.

Her work for MDE11 focuses on the presentation of a video featuring 3 individual channels entitled ‘The Class’, ‘Death Seminar’ and ‘The Two Planets’. Araya recognizes that she always works with the aim of preserving art, an objective she achieves, given that “the way in which people value and collect works of art has always been evident”.

The Class and Death Seminar are 2 videos which are based on her work at Chiang Mai University. The difference between the audiovisual pieces lies in the fact that the students in the latter piece are dead bodies, whilst the former is a work of art in itself, one which depicts situations in which communication appears to be cut off, and where information is transmitted in an incomprehensible fashion.

Website
www.rama9art.org/araya/biograp.html

Links of interest
‘Confronting Confrontation. Interview with Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’
‘The Two Planets’ Images from the series and a brief report

Contact
araya@chiangmai.ac.th

MDE11 participation