Page 147 - Post Summit_2019_AV

Kawita Vatanajyankur Thai artist Kawita Vatanajyankur debuted her art piece Knit at Culture Summit Abu Dhabi. The powerful performance involved the artist struggling with lengths of yarn, weaving herself into a tighter and tighter web. This performance component is part of her ongoing series of illuminating videos, titled Performing Textiles. Invoking a powerful sense of physicality, the series uncovers a world of often-invisible domestic labour in which the artist painfully tests the limits of her own body. Her dynamic video art is a springboard to explore the value of the performative body and the role of gesture within that very performance. Vatanajyankur has achieved significant recognition since graduating from RMIT University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in fine art in 2011. In 2015 she was a finalist for the Jaguar Asia Pacific Tech Art Prize, and in recent years her work has featured at such prestigious venues and events as London’s Saatchi Gallery; the 57th Venice Biennale; the Asia Triennal of Performing Arts at the Melbourne Arts Centre; the Asian Art Biennial Taiwan; and the Bangkok Art Biennale. Vatanajyankur has exhibited widely across Australia, Asia, the US and Europe, and her work is displayed in the National Collection of Thailand, the Singapore Art Museum, Dunedin Public Art Gallery (Dunedin Art Museum), Maiiam Contemporary Art Museum, as well as in university and private collections across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, Europe and the US. 143