- LaSalle College of the Arts, MA Asian Art Histories, Faculty Memberadd
- Photography Theory, Thai Studies, Contemporary Asian art, Thai art criticism, Art History, Visual Culture, and 25 moreAlternative modernity, Southeast Asian history, Southeast Asian Studies, Southeast Asian Art History, Contemporary Art, Visual Studies, Vietnam, Cambodia, Urban Studies, Comparative Modernities, Theory and History of Art, Photography, Thailand, Relational aesthetics, Community Art, Social Engagement, Buddhism, Thai History, Politics in Thailand, Art Theory and Politics, Southeast Asia, History of photography, Thai politics, Southeast Asian Art, and Photography (Visual Studies)edit
- My research primarily deals with Southeast Asian photography, art and visual culture, with a particular focus on Thai... moreMy research primarily deals with Southeast Asian photography, art and visual culture, with a particular focus on Thailand. This is supplemented by an interest in issues of methodology and historiography in Southeast Asian art, particularly from feminist perspectives.
PhD Thesis (completed 2016)
Thainess Framed: Photography and Thai Identity, 1946-2010
Throughout the reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX, r. 1946-) photography has gained significance as a means to construct and articulate national identity. That the monarch’s photographic image could be simultaneously an indexical representation of a historical personage and the iconic image of a divinely-legitimised King meant that the medium’s ‘reality-effect’ was invested with ideological significance. Yet, in some cases, photography’s representative power could be seized upon to subvert the hegemony of this nationalist discourse by pointing to its limits and exclusions. This thesis historically articulates the photographic formation of a conventionalised nationalist discourse based on notions of 'moral Thainess', mapping the boundaries between what is representable and un-representable, and identifying possibilities for difference and multiplicity beyond its limits.
Supervisors: Prof. John Clark and Assoc. Prof. Mary Robertsedit
Research Interests: Photography and Thailand
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Book available here: https://shop.powerpublications.com.au/products/ambitious-alignments-new-histories-of-southeast-asian-art-1945-1990
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***Previously published as 'The Photographic Conditions of Contemporary Thai Art', in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Journal, no. 34, 2017.*** This paper takes as a point of departure, Rosalind Krauss’ essay ‘The Photographic Conditions of... more
***Previously published as 'The Photographic Conditions of Contemporary Thai Art', in the Taipei Fine Arts Museum Journal, no. 34, 2017.***
This paper takes as a point of departure, Rosalind Krauss’ essay ‘The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism’, in which she describes the relationship between photography’s indexical function and its position as the example par excellence of Surrealist artistic practice. In the same way, this paper examines changing attitudes in Thailand towards photography’s artistic status and presumed indexicality as paradigmatic examples of a transformation from the modern to the contemporary. Photography’s crucial role in this shift is located in key alterations to the medium’s functions and perceptions of its artistic legitimacy. On the one hand, the acceptance of photography as an art form reflects developments in imbricated networks of legitimation, occurring with the rise of international education and exhibition opportunities in the post-Cold War period. On the other hand, the conditions of photography itself, or rather its ontology, produce a conceptualisation of the contemporary as manifested in a desire for proximity with difference. In examining works by a number of contemporary Thai artists, I argue that photography’s visualisation of the ‘optical unconscious’ allows one to fulfil this desire for contemporaneity, while also pointing to the limits of representation as a means of asserting coevality.
This paper takes as a point of departure, Rosalind Krauss’ essay ‘The Photographic Conditions of Surrealism’, in which she describes the relationship between photography’s indexical function and its position as the example par excellence of Surrealist artistic practice. In the same way, this paper examines changing attitudes in Thailand towards photography’s artistic status and presumed indexicality as paradigmatic examples of a transformation from the modern to the contemporary. Photography’s crucial role in this shift is located in key alterations to the medium’s functions and perceptions of its artistic legitimacy. On the one hand, the acceptance of photography as an art form reflects developments in imbricated networks of legitimation, occurring with the rise of international education and exhibition opportunities in the post-Cold War period. On the other hand, the conditions of photography itself, or rather its ontology, produce a conceptualisation of the contemporary as manifested in a desire for proximity with difference. In examining works by a number of contemporary Thai artists, I argue that photography’s visualisation of the ‘optical unconscious’ allows one to fulfil this desire for contemporaneity, while also pointing to the limits of representation as a means of asserting coevality.
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“Editorial introduction: Gender in Southeast Asian Art Histories” in Southeast of Now Journal, Vol. 3 No. 1 (March 2019): 1-11.
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Research Interests: Photography and Thailand
Panel co-convened by Yvonne Low, Roger Nelson, Clare Veal. Presented at AMSN3: Modernist Work. The Third Biennial Conference of the Australasian Modernist Studies Network. 29-31 March 2016. University of New South Wales, Sydney. This... more
Panel co-convened by Yvonne Low, Roger Nelson, Clare Veal. Presented at AMSN3: Modernist Work. The Third Biennial Conference of the Australasian Modernist Studies Network. 29-31 March 2016. University of New South Wales, Sydney.
This panel aims to explore modernist developments in relation to the rise of new actors during times of political transitions in three closely related Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand. Often, the work of the artists cannot be viewed in isolation from networks of patronage, and especially from state patronage, as emerging nations struggle to define cultural and national identities. The papers in this panel aim to re-evaluate historiographical and curatorial discourses of modern art in Southeast Asia by reconsidering the impact that patronage had on formalizing and legitimizing the " work " of artists and the cultural productions of its time.
This panel aims to explore modernist developments in relation to the rise of new actors during times of political transitions in three closely related Southeast Asian countries: Cambodia, Indonesia and Thailand. Often, the work of the artists cannot be viewed in isolation from networks of patronage, and especially from state patronage, as emerging nations struggle to define cultural and national identities. The papers in this panel aim to re-evaluate historiographical and curatorial discourses of modern art in Southeast Asia by reconsidering the impact that patronage had on formalizing and legitimizing the " work " of artists and the cultural productions of its time.