THE AMAZONAS AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: A CULTURAL EXCHANGE
The exhibition How many worlds are we? Presented in The Jim Thompson Art Center explores the notion of East and West in traditional and contemporary cultural practices between Amazonas and Southeast Asia.
The transformation of the dynamics of cultural relations between regions, made distant in the past due to geography, is revealed today as an important factor in the decisive mutations in the social landscape of the world we live in. This exhibition shows an array of parallels to be drawn between cultural experiences in an attempt to understand the presence of “nature” and the “spirit” of the “forest”.
According to curator Alexander Melo’s research and reflections made during the past few years in the West, namely in Latin America (mainly in Brazil and in the states of Amazonas and Bahia), and in the East (mainly in Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries), this exhibition arose with the aim of gathering a diverse group of contemporary artists active in these regions. Besides a decentering of geo-cultural perspectives, we search for the possibility of a confrontation between different ways of relating to notions like nature, spirituality or humanity.
The approach is not anthropological or ecological, in a strict sense, but still takes “nature” and “spirit”—namely in relation to the “forest” and the entities that inhabit it, in Brazil or in Thailand—as main topics or references to help the audience understand the knowledge, motivations and expectations expressed in the work of the selected artists, namely, in the way in which they articulate an eventual affiliation to a specific cultural tradition with potential insertion in the global dynamics of popular mass culture.
The sculptures, installations, photography, and film in this exhibition investigate how we can re-imagine our relations with nature and the realm of the spiritual within a kind of poetic intelligence as it manifests itself in the work of the artists we present.
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Jonathas de Andrade. O Peixe (The Fish), 2016. 16mm film transferred to 2K, 37 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
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Wantanee Siripattananuntakul, Making the Unknown Known (still), 2020-22. Three-channel video installation, 15:20 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
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Soe Yu New. Pink Serpent, 2018. Glazed ceramics, underglazes, oxides, gols and mother of pearl luster, 175 x 63 x 15cm. Courtesy of the artist.
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Vuth Lyno, Vibrating Park-Forest, 2023. Site-specific installation of printed papers, pencil drawings on walls, and fan. Photo: Sanya Charoensap. Courtesy of Jim Thompson Art Center, James H.W. Thompson Foundation.
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Gallery 1, Installation view with (Front) Vasco Araújo, Exotismo #1, 2014. (Left) Torlap Larpjaroensook, Space Station, 2023 (Right). Tawatchai Puntusawasdi, Border of Void, 2022. (Back). Ayrson Heráclito, DIVISOR III, 2002. IJÓ MIMÓ, 2019. Logun Ode with Bow, Arrow and Peacock feathers, 2020.
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View of How Many Worlds Are We? 2023. Courtesy of Jim Thompson Art Center, James H.W. Thompson Foundation.
Artists: Ayrson Heráclito (Brazil), Jonathas de Andrade (Brazil), Pratchaya Phinthong (Thailand), Soe Yu Nwe (Myanmar), Tawatchai Puntusawasdi (Thailand), Torlarp Larpjaroensook (Thailand), Vasco Araújo (Portugal), Vuth Lyno (Cambodia), Wantanee Siripattananuntakul (Thailand), Yonamine (Angola).
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