Araya RASDJARMREARNSOOK (Chiang Mai)

Death Seminar B, 2005, single-channel video, color, sound, 18′.

The artist is engaged in a Q&A session with lifeless bodies obtained from a morgue. Universally, death is hidden behind elaborate rituals, while science and medicine pursue its delay. Here the artist asks us to both expand our imagination and confront preconceived notions. Her delicate, sincere, and humorous interactions draw from Buddhist principals to propose value in continued closeness between the living and the dead.

About the artist:

Working with psychologically rich materials, Rasdjarmrearnsook considers a wide range of subjects that have existed in marginal spaces, including women, the deceased, the insane, and animals. She creates complex narratives that confront societal structures of power and pedagogy and her use of provocative imagery challenge viewers’ moral senses and tolerance. Concerned with systems of language and communication, Rasdjarmrearnsook makes earnest attempts to converse with subjects who don’t speak in languages comprehended by, or even acknowledged by, mainstream society. Rasdjarmrearnsook’s works have been regularly featured in major international exhibitions; she represented Thailand at the Venice Biennale in 2005, was part of dOCUMENTA(13) in Kassel, and in 2015 was presented in her first retrospective in the United States at the Sculpture Center in New York.