Nova Contemporary is delighted to present “Ban Wang Hma’s 3 Stories (Dog’s Palatial House)”, an screening programme by Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, one of Southeast Asia’s most internationally recognised contemporary artists, and Thailand’s first female video artist.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook was born in Trad, Thailand, in 1957. After earning both a BFA and an MFA in graphic arts from Silpakorn University, Bangkok, she completed further studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, receiving a diploma in 1990 and an MA in 1994. Rasdjarmrearnsook has been well-known for her print and sculpture works since the 1980s, but reached global prominence when she began to create video works with corpses in the late 1990s. Exploring the finite yet shifting dynamics between life and death, she has consistently provoked the wider theme of overcoming binaries, including those of self and object, and man and animal. The works included in the screening programme revolve around Ban Wang Hma (Dog’s Palatial House), a home in Chiang Mai that the artist built in 2001 to live with the dogs she rescues. At one point housing as many as twenty eight dogs, the home has been known locally as an iconic landmark over the last two decades, an emblem of the Rasdjarmarearnsook’s near mythical status. The exhibited videos draw from the artist’s communion with her dogs: they follow the animals’ travels, chronicle their daily routines of life and inner thoughts, and position them as existential philosophers. Rasdjarmrearnsook challenges socially-constructed hierarchies and the rapid and repeated rhythms of modern life, which she characterizes as the “tempo[s] of necessity”. She negates an existence of consumption, labels, and human dominance, enacting new modes of kinship and intimacy.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook was born in Trad, Thailand, in 1957. After earning both a BFA and an MFA in graphic arts from Silpakorn University, Bangkok, she completed further studies in Germany at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, receiving a diploma in 1990 and an MA in 1994. Rasdjarmrearnsook has been well-known for her print and sculpture works since the 1980s, but reached global prominence when she began to create video works with corpses in the late 1990s. Exploring the finite yet shifting dynamics between life and death, she has consistently provoked the wider theme of overcoming binaries, including those of self and object, and man and animal. The works included in the screening programme revolve around Ban Wang Hma (Dog’s Palatial House), a home in Chiang Mai that the artist built in 2001 to live with the dogs she rescues. At one point housing as many as twenty eight dogs, the home has been known locally as an iconic landmark over the last two decades, an emblem of the Rasdjarmarearnsook’s near mythical status. The exhibited videos draw from the artist’s communion with her dogs: they follow the animals’ travels, chronicle their daily routines of life and inner thoughts, and position them as existential philosophers. Rasdjarmrearnsook challenges socially-constructed hierarchies and the rapid and repeated rhythms of modern life, which she characterizes as the “tempo[s] of necessity”. She negates an existence of consumption, labels, and human dominance, enacting new modes of kinship and intimacy.
Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s works have been subjected to solo presentations at international institutions including the National Gallery, Bangkok (1987, 1992, 1994, 1995, and 2002); Tensta Konsthall, Stockholm (2003); Bass Museum of Art, Miami (2012); Walters Art Museum, Baltimore (2012); and the Sculpture Center, New York (2015). She has been regularly included in biennales and other periodic exhibitions, including the Sydney Biennial (1996 and 2010), Istanbul Biennial (2003), Venice Biennale (2005), Documenta 13 (2012), and Singapore Biennale (2016 and 2022). Her work has also been shown in group exhibitions internationally, at venues including the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (2008, 2010, 2014, 2022, 2024); National Art Gallery, Singapore (2010); National Museum of Art, Osaka (2011); Asian Art Museum of San Francisco (2012); Para Site, Hong Kong (2013); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (2013); Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2014). Rasdjarmrearnsook’s works are in numerous international public collections including those of Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Asia Society, New York; Orange County Museum of Art, Costa Mesa; M+, Hong Kong; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; National Museum, Osaka; Singapore Art Museum, Singapore; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; and Museum Arnhem, Arnhem.