스킵네비게이션

Born 1957 in Trad, Thailand

Lives in Chiang Mai

Araya RASDJAMREANSOOK, Reading Inaow for one female corpse, 2001, Single channel video, 5min 54sec

By exploring the interactions between the domains which are distinctive yet interlinked, Araya RASDJAMREANSOOK contemplates the significance of communication. By featuring in her works various domains including life and death, human and animal, reality and fiction, normal and abnormal, limits and instincts, etc., she invites the viewers to meditate on the subjects of our surroundings. Her direct message, embedding acute criticism, is recognized to be representative of the era, which explores the absent layers of interpretation in society.

Before working with videos, during the 1980s and 1990s, RASDJAMREANSOOK experimented with intaglio printmaking and sculpture installations. Her initial sculptures were acknowledged to deliver the societal position of women in Thailand. Amongst the various subjects of her interest, she puts focus towards the animals, the dead, women, handicapped, and those who are marginalized in the normative society. In the late 1990s, RASDJAMREANSOOK shifted her practice towards video and film, and brought into her practice the consciousness of the dead by working with corpses in a series of video works. For instance, she would film herself practicing a ritual for a corpse in the mortuary. Works such as A Walk (1996, 2003), Reading for Corpses (2002), Chant for Female Corpse (2001, 2002), I'm Living (2003), the Conversation (2005), The Class (2005), also dealt with the consciousness of the dead via corpses.

In The Class (2005), RASDJAMREANSOOK teaches ‘death’ to six corpses, covered in white sheets and aligned on the tray of the morgue. By presenting a rather appalling and shocking image, she invites the viewers to re-evaluate the universal meaning of personal loss, life and death by challenging the moral codes and magnanimity of the viewer. Although her narrative is rather provocative, her video holds a meditative and ritualistic quality. Through such approach, the artist pays tribute to other souls and humanity in a level of consciousness.