Som Supaparinya, who lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand, is the winner of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant. She will receive $15,000 USD to produce a new work (a copy of which will be acquired by Museion in Bolzano, Italy) that will be exhibited by each partner institution of the Grant: Sàn Art, Vietnam; the Jim Thompson Art Center, Thailand; Museion, Italy; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark and Rockbund Art Museum, China.
Supaparinya was chosen from a shortlist of eight artists including Kray Chen, Ho Rui An, Rizki Lazuardi, Puangsoi Aksornsawang, Shireen Seno, Elsa Wong and Moe Myat May Zarchi.
‘Nowadays, even if digital media has become a popular medium in the art world, the art market in the region still tends to collect object-based art works rather than digital works. This makes video art in the region challenging to develop freely without support,’ Supaparinya stated. ‘Considering these difficulties, I am really appreciative for a grant that is devoted to the development of video art.’
Born in Chiang Mai, Thailand in 1973, Supaparinya graduated from a Fine Arts degree at Chiang Mai University before studying Media Arts at Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst Leipzig in Germany. In 2013, she co-founded the CAC-Chiang Mai Art Conversation to help organise and consolidate information about the Chiang Mai art scene.
Writing about Supaparinya’s work for ArtReview in 2023, Max Crosbie-Jones stated that her works ‘are serene and accretive: images are layered, like so much sand or alluvium, to build a heightened atmosphere more majestic – and disquieting – than the sum of its parts.’
Now in its second iteration, the Han Nefkens Foundation – Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant was established in Barcelona in 2023 to support artists working in video art in Southeast Asia who haven’t had the opportunity to exhibit widely internationally. The current edition was held in memory of the Vietnamese-American artist Dinh Q. Lê, founder of Sàn Art in Vietnam and one of the initiators of the Grant, who passed away in 2024.
The initial selection of artists presented to the jury was made by a panel of art critics and curators: Alfonse Chiu, Chu Hao Pei, Mayumi Hirano, May Adadol Ingawanij, Natalie Khoo, Annika Kristensen, Mary Pansanga, Russell Storer, Kazue Suzuki and Arlette Quynh-Anh Tran.
The final jury was chaired by Mr. Han Nefkens and composed of Henriette Bretton-Meyer, curator at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark; Mary Lou David, curator and representing Sàn Art, Vietnam; Gridthiya Gaweewong, director of the Jim Thompson Art Center, Thailand; Bart van der Heide, director of Museion, Italy; Takeshi Matsuoka, curator at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; Kazune Shimizu, curator at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan and X Zhu-Nowell, artistic director of Rockbund Art Museum, China in the presence of Hilde Teerlinck and Alessandra Biscaro, respectively director and coordinator of the Han Nefkens Foundation.
Som Supaparinya’s work is currently on view at the National Gallery of Thailand as part of the Bangkok Art Biennale through 25 February.
