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There’s no Place: Call & Response Embroidery Workshops with Jakkai Siributr
August 17 @ 1:30 pm - 3:30 pm
Renowned artist Jakkai Siributr’s new long-term project, There’s No Place is a collaborative ‘call-and response’ embroidery piece that creates an ongoing dialogue between the displaced ethnic Shan communities of Thailand—notably that of Koung Jor Shan Refugee Camp (KJSRC) and those served by Shan Youth Power—and viewers around the world. KJSRC is an unofficial camp on temple land, that was established in 2002 when about 500 refugees fleeing from fighting between the Shan State Army-South and government troops arrived in Thailand. Many have called the camp home for almost two decades, and a new generation born within its boundaries, has known no other home and remain effectively stateless. Education and livelihood initiatives can help refugees thrive, retain dignity, contribute to the economy of their host country. But unable to partake in the formal workforce, Siributr invites the residents of the KJSRC to become his primary collaborators in this project, offering them work within the perimeters of the camp, and compensating them with daily wages. Siributr’s collaborators are now embroidering their stories—how they came to be there; their ideas of home; their hopes, and their fears.
Building upon the artist’s earlier work on displacement, There’s No Place is a participatory project exploring identity, belonging, and ‘home,’ inspired by a personal attempt to reckon with the protracted refugee situation on the Thai-Burma border. Following a series of interactive sessions in various locations, on 17 August there will be an opportunity for the public to meet Siributr and contribute to this project during two sessions to be held at SEA Junction at 10-12am (1st session) and at 1.30-3.30pm (2nd session). Anyone is welcome to participate in these ‘Response’ embroidery workshop sessions by embroidering images or texts to create a dialogue between themselves and the stateless Shan ethnic minority group. A maximum of 20 participants per session will embroider on the same piece of cloth that has been previously embroidered by the Shan community.
This work aims to explore the conditions of refugeehood in a way that goes beyond the vocabulary of aid, help, and development: By unearthing how we ourselves are heirs to the stories of refugees, this work becomes a meaningful way to indict today’s neglect. The project also looks at the audience—not as a passive receiver of predefined content—but as an active member of a constituent body, whom the textile provokes and inspires. Through this, and through his own embroideries that is interspersed throughout the final textile as a connective tissue, the artist is addressing issues such as ownership and power dynamics, collaboration, and economies of exchange. There is implicit here, an expressed urgency to move away from the usual binary used to describe refugees, migrants, and the host country: that one either lives a temporary life in a refugee camp, or that one becomes a citizen with a permanent residency. In reality, there’s a huge spectrum between those two binaries.
Over time, these perspectives are brought together to present a contemporary, collaborative, textile installation that blurs the line between sculpture, craft, and advocacy. There’s no Place was unveiled for the first time in 2023 at CHAT (Centre for Heritage Arts & Textiles ) in Hong Kong as part of the artist retrospective ‘Everybody Wanna Be Happy’. The work has also been selected for ‘The Spirits of Maritime Crossing’ – Collateral Event of the 60th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, which is still ongoing. The project is continuing and the two sessions at SEA Junction will contribute to further enrich the textile installation There’s no Place.
At the workshop sessions, all materials will be provided. No prior knowledge of sewing or embroidery is required. The artist will be onsite to discuss the project and share his experiences with embroidery.
Artist Bio
Jakkai Siributr is known primarily for his textile and embroidery works, and his installations increasingly offer an element of audience participation. Siributr is concerned with the unofficial histories that have been written out of Thai accounts as well as intersections between personal and regional histories. He creates a delicate tension between his subject matter — ongoing conflict driven by nationalistic discrimination against minorities — and the visual sensuality of his chosen form and materials. More recently he has begun to work with various communities through embroidery workshops including refugees on the Thai-Myanmar border and the USA. He also worked with the Thai Government on a social developmental program in remote areas of Mozambique. Studying and residing in the USA for nearly ten years, Siributr earned his BA in Textiles/Fine Arts, at Indiana University Bloomington in 1992 and MS in Printed Textile Design at the Philadelphia University in 1996. He was an instructor at Thammasat University’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts from 1996-2003. See further Instagram @jakkai
For information/reservation for our events please email: info@seajunction.org or phone/wa: +66970024140
NB: The event is free, but donations are welcome to support SEA Junction activities.
Organizer:
SEA Junction, established under the Thai non-profit organization Foundation for Southeast Asia Studies (ForSEA), aims to foster understanding and appreciation of Southeast Asia in all its socio-cultural dimensions, from arts and lifestyles to economy and development. Conveniently located at Room 407 and 408 of the Bangkok Arts and Culture Center or BACC (across MBK, BTS National Stadium), SEA Junction facilitates public access to knowledge resources and exchanges among students, practitioners and Southeast Asia lovers. For more information, see www.seajunction.org, join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/groups/1693058870976440/ and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @seajunction.
