The Bouquet and the Wreath (ข้อมาลา), a retrospective exhibition covering Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s entire artistic career, opened at MAIIAM in Chiang Mai last year. The exhibition catalogue, edited by curators Roger Nelson and Kittima Chareeprasit, was published this month, in a limited edition of 700 copies.
The catalogue includes an interview with the artist by Kawita Vatanajyankur, It’s Strange How We Were Brought up with Such Ideas. Araya discusses the video works in which she speaks to shrouded corpses: “The mortician advised that before entering the morgue, I should open the door and take a deep breath to avoid being constantly disturbed by the smell. By inhaling the scent of the dead deeply, letting the whole body absorb it, it would no longer both me. It’s about confronting it, going in and touching it.”
The catalogue includes an interview with the artist by Kawita Vatanajyankur, It’s Strange How We Were Brought up with Such Ideas. Araya discusses the video works in which she speaks to shrouded corpses: “The mortician advised that before entering the morgue, I should open the door and take a deep breath to avoid being constantly disturbed by the smell. By inhaling the scent of the dead deeply, letting the whole body absorb it, it would no longer both me. It’s about confronting it, going in and touching it.”
In a foreword, the exhibition and catalogue are described as “Araya’s first large-scale survey exhibition and publication,” though there have been several previous publications that documented earlier periods in Araya’s career. Storytellers of the Town, edited by John Clark, was published to accompany a 2014 exhibition that served as a partial retrospective. Earlier catalogues include Art and Words (ศิลปะกับถ้อยความ) published in 2006 and Lament in 1999.