Kawita Vatanajyankur. Photo: Anantaporn Intravisit
Kawita Vatanajyankur
PROJECT
Kawita Vatanajyankur places her own body at the centre of a critique of consumer culture and gendered labour. Performing the mechanical, exhausting and repetitive actions of household appliances and industrial tools, she adopts a cyborg-like persona to collapse the distinction between human and machine. Drawn from various series created over the past decade, these videos examine domestic work, air pollution, the conditions of the textile and fishing industries, and exploitation within modern farming practices. The physical intensity of these performances, described by Vatanajyankur as ‘meditation postures’, particularly underscore the endurance, vulnerability and strength embedded in female labour.
ABOUT
Kawita Vatanajyankur graduated with a BA in Fine Art from RMIT University, Melbourne, in 2011. She has exhibited widely across Australia, Asia, the United States and Europe, with solo exhibitions at Nova Contemporary and Jim Thompson House Museum in Bangkok (Thailand); Museo Novecento, Florence (Italy); and Buffalo AKG Art Museum, Buffalo, (US). Her work has been included in major group exhibitions including the Bangkok Art Biennale, Art Basel Hong Kong, the Venice Biennale and the Asia Pacific Triennial (APT11). Vatanajyankur’s work is held in significant public collections including the National Collection of Thailand, QAGOMA, Singapore Art Museum and the MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art. She is currently represented by Nova Contemporary, Bangkok.