Exhibitions
Past exhibition program
Saisampan: Soul Ties
Twelve Australian artists have been selected for residencies in Thailand since the Australia Council Artists in Residency Program in Asia began in 1989, under the wing of curator and academic Somporn Rodboon, at Silpakorn University. Asialink took over the full administration of the program in 1991 and to mark over a decade of Visual Arts/Craft Residencies to Thailand, a residency that 'twinned' four Australian artists with four leading Thai artists was organized in partnership with Rodboon.
Saisampan, meaning 'soul ties' in Thai, involved a return visit to Thailand of one month for four selected Australian artists. Somporn Rodboon selected the Australian artists and matched them with the most appropriate local artists - Joan Grounds and Araya Rasjarmrearnsook, Noelene Lucas and Chaiyot Chandratita, David Jensz and Peerpong Duangkaew and Wendy Teakel worked with Bannarak Nakbanlang. The works produced were site-specific in response to the immediate environment and the collaborative process and the project culminated in an exhibition at the Chiang Mai University Art Museum in February 2002.
" I see collaboration as a context that I can work specifically to and with. For years I have worked with site and context specificity in installation practice, in the traditional and formal sense of the physical attributes of a site, the social and political considerations specific to that site.... When one adds collaboration to the mixture, the collaboration itself becomes both a site and a context from which to proceed to make work, and there is almost unlimited space for exploration and unknown territory to chart. When a cross-cultural project is thrown into the mix, the potential for extremes of success and failure is greatly amplified." - Joan Grounds, March 2002.
The project provided the opportunity to celebrate a decade of co-operation on the program, to recognize the contributions of the individual artists from Australia and their hosts in Thailand, to consolidate this experience for the individuals and also to enable new partnerships between the artists. Cultural Officer at the Australian Embassy in Bangkok, Piyarat Suksiri, writes that the project "reflects Post's ongoing effort to encourage people-to-people exchanges between Australia and Thailand, and to enhance the Thai people's understanding of Australian culture"
Core funding came from the Australia Council and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Further support came from Chiang Mai University, the Australian Embassy in Bangkok, and the Canberra School of Art, National Institute of the Arts, Australian National University.