Kawita Vatanajyankur's video performances, set against candy-coloured backdrops, are both alluring and thought-provoking, as the artist is far more concerned with what's going on inside the candy factory than with bright and shiny wrappings, of the kind that has come to define our modes of consumption. With several major international exhibitions in 2017 -- including a stint at the Venice Art Biennale as part of the Alamak! Pavilion -- Kawita has been busy packing and unpacking, installing her works in locations around the globe.
Her latest show, which opened last month at Nova Contemporary in Bangkok, allowed Thai artgoers -- many of whom have been following her trajectory on social media -- to catch sight in person of some of her most recent installations.
In the past few years, Kawita has presented us with graphic reflections on the underpaid, menial jobs that surround us, from the invisible domestic sphere to the ill-considered marketplace, giving shape to men and mostly women who strive in their daily existence, unnoticed.
Using her own body as a tool for each performance, the artist replicates a single machine-like movement in continuous motion -- much like the mechanical work that happens on an assembly line, repeated ad nauseam.
In her latest exhibition, "Splashed", Kawita goes further down the production chain. She delves deep into how our daily commodity -- food and, specifically, fish, a national-export product -- is being sourced.
Speaking to Life, she explains that her desire to tackle issues of modern slavery and human trafficking, both sadly common in the fishing industry, came from dinner-table conversations with family members, several of them lawyers.
"In my previous series of works, I had set my sights on topics that were closer to my everyday life," she says. "But in order to fully understand and translate the horrific working conditions on fishing boats, I began by conducting interviews with lawyers and NGOs working on these cases."
The research-based project resulted in three visual instalments, all set against a single hue of deep-sea-blue backgrounds.
"Splashed" as a whole has more dramatic intensity than her previous work, but leaves out the playful, spontaneous and self-derisive elements that have characterised Kawita's performance videos so far. Thus, the exhibition borders on the aestheticisation of enslaved fishermen's appalling working conditions.
Nevertheless, Kawita's work is centred on making visible the invisible workforce with an acute sense of social justice.
Like a thread running through her past and present exhibitions, her performances' titles -- Carrier and The Scale -- act as reminders of how these men and women bring food to our tables every day and help drive our economy forward, but also of how little credit and consideration they receive.
The physical prowess Kawita exhibits in her performances is undeniable. Earlier this year, while rehearsing one of her pieces, the artist sustained an injury -- leading to additional safety measures and precautions taken. "My mother, my aunt, my housekeeper and driver -- they're now all present in the studio," she adds, noting that, no matter how critically acclaimed her work has become, it remains a "family production".
Will Kawita do live performances in the future? The artist herself is unsure, as she enjoys the mise en scene and editing process involved in her pieces' creation.
"It's almost like painting," she adds. "I bring out the colours to make them more vivid, and hand-paint the props involved in the performance." Perhaps the seminal piece of this exhibition Big Fish In A Small Pond, in which the artist hangs on a rod as alternatively a live fish that's just been caught and a dead one, features tubtim fish, purchased at her local market, on the floor.
Appropriately, this species of fish is also a speciality of CP, one of Thailand's leading agribusiness and food companies, the kind of production Kawita wishes us to question.
"Splashed" is on view at Nova Contemporary, Soi Mahadlekluang 3, until Dec 24.
