Round-table
Kawita Vatanajyankur, The Machine Ghost in the Human Shell, 4K Performance Video and Holographic Installation, 2024. Commissioned by QAGOMA. Courtesy of the artist
Co-presented by AWARE: Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions (Paris), Asia Art Archive (Hong Kong), and the Jim Thompson Art Center (Bangkok), this programme brings together leading scholars, curators, and artists to reflect on recent scholarship on gender diversity in art histories in Southeast Asia.
Hosted at the Jim Thompson Art Center, the programme features roundtable discussions and presentations exploring gender diversity in Southeast Asian art history. This event taking place during the final year of “The Flow of History. Southeast Asian Women Artists” a three-year research initiative by AWARE and AAA, focuses on two key areas: first, research and archiving methodologies for and about women and non-binary artists in Southeast Asia, highlighting regional case studies and emergent challenges; second, looking back on the three years of The Flow of History programme, including a reflection on its broader implications, new questions and future directions for gender-focused art historical research in Southeast Asia.
Speakers include members of The Flow of History advisory committee, as well as artists, researchers, and curators from Thailand, whose work engages with the ongoing questions of this research initiative.
Inspired by the poem A Woman’s Portrait 1938 by Indonesian poet Toeti Heraty (1933–2021), the title “The Flow of History” evokes the vital work of memory in archiving precarious histories. The programme raises transversal historical questions about gender in the biographies and practices of women and non-binary artists across Southeast Asia, while remaining attuned to the region’s diversity and socio-political dynamics across the 20th and 21st centuries.
Practical information
Sunday, November 23, 2025, from 1:00 to 5:45 pm
The Jim Thompson Art Center
10/1 Kasem San 2 Alley, Wang Mai, Pathum Wan, Bangkok 10330
Free and open to the public
Programme
Sun. 23 November 2025
The Jim Thompson Art Center
The Jim Thompson Art Center
1:00-1:20 pm
Welcome and introductions to Jim Thomson Art Center, Asia Art Archive, and AWARE
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Speakers
Gridthiya Gaweewong (Artistic Director, Jim Thompson Art Center)
Özge Ersoy (Executive Director, Asia Art Archive)
Nina Volz (Head of International Development, AWARE)
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1:20-2:50 pm
Roundtable Discussion | Building Archives and Research Methodologies
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Speakers
Pamela Nguyen Corey (Associate Professor of Art History, Faculty of Art & Media Studies, Fulbright University Vietnam)
Waew Kasamaponn Saengsuratham (Curator and Researcher)
Yvonne Low (Lecturer, Discipline of Art History and Museum Studies, University of Sydney)
Varsha Nair (Artist and Member of Womanifesto) and Marni Williams (Publications Manager, Power Institute, and Member of the Womanifesto Anthology Editorial Collective)
Grace Samboh (Researcher and Curator, Member of Hyphen—)
Moderator
Özge Ersoy (Executive Director, Asia Art Archive)
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3:00-3:30 pm
Artist’s Presentation | The Machine Ghost in the Human Shell
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Speaker
Kawita Vatanajyankur
In this presentation, Kawita Vatanajyankur traces the evolution of her work from 2012 to 2025 for the Cyber Labor series. The trajectory she traces in this retrospective ranges from performing as a machine—to expose the conditioning of the human body under systems of labour—to being controlled by the machine itself.
Cyber Labor is an inquiry into how society turns humans into machines through labour, while endowing machines with human qualities in the pursuit of progress. By doing so, society often overlooks that technology—no matter how advanced—operates within the politics of its system. In an equal, humane world, technology would evolve to support collective well-being; yet, in an unequal one, it advances to sustain exploitation and control, resulting in humans becoming the machinery of their own oppression. As her practice often begins with the body—as a site of both labour and memory— Kawita Vatanajyankur explores how the female body, historically objectified and instrumentalized, becomes vessel of endurance and resistance, while considering their contradictory coexistence with surrender.
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3:30-5:00 pm
Roundtable Discussion | The Flow of History: Reflections and Future Directions
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Speakers
Sarena Abdullah (Associate Professor, School of the Arts, Universiti Sains Malaysia)
Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez (Associate Professor, Department of Art Studies, University of the Philippines Diliman)
John Tain (Curator and Researcher)
Chương-Đài Võ (Curator and Researcher)
Wong Binghao (Writer, Editor, and Curator)
Moderator
Nina Volz (Head of International Development, AWARE)
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5:15-5:45 pm
Closing Addresses
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Speakers
Pojai Akratanakul (Curator)
Adulaya Kim Hoontrakul (Director, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre)
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