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Phaptawan Suwannakudt

Retold-Untold Stories

Natali Pearson
Eyeline 86
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Stories—their telling and re-telling, and how to make meaning from them across generations and cultures—feature at the warm heart of artist Phaptawan Suwannakudt’s latest exhibition, Retold-Untold Stories. In her insightful catalogue essay, co-curator Clare Veal reminds us that Suwannakudt’s artistic practice has long involved telling stories as a way of building empathetic connections with others. Retold-Untold Stories builds on this process by weaving together the role of language, memory and interpretation at the same time as it invites the audience to join the conversation.1

This is the show’s second iteration, having developed out of a 2014 Asialink residency at Ne’-Na Contemporary Art Space in Chiang Mai, northern Thailand. Here, Suwannakudt forged connections with women from the local Lanna community, while also attempting to trace her family’s history through the fragmented memories of her mother, born in Chiang Mai and increasingly affected by dementia.

Although a well-established artist in her own right, Suwannakudt is frequently introduced in relation to her famous father, Thai mural painter Paiboon Suwannakudt (Tan Kudt). He supported his daughter’s artistic interests, and, as a child, she often accompanied him to the Buddhist temples that were his workplace. However, her gender precluded her from entering certain parts of the temple grounds, and she became increasingly cognizant of the barriers to participation in Thai society: ‘I was made aware since I was a child that I certainly belonged to a different category and almost different species […] in the community. There was a different code of conduct for me and the boys during the daily routine at the site in the temple where my father worked.’2

After Tan Kudt’s death, Suwannakudt broke with tradition by leading... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline

There, there, 2014. Details. Mixed media and organic matter, dimensions variable. Figure casts: fabric and resin, 30 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist.

There, there, 2014. Details. Mixed media and organic matter, dimensions variable. Figure casts: fabric and resin, 30 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist.

Broken the spell, 2014. Mixed media, dimensions variable. Hanging sculpture: handmade paper, tea, coffee, hand-dyed thread, 90 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist.

Broken the spell, 2014. Mixed media, dimensions variable. Hanging sculpture: handmade paper, tea, coffee, hand-dyed thread, 90 x 30cm. Courtesy the artist.