In the scorching Belém sun and Amazonian humidity, punctuated by sudden downpours, the second Bienal das Amazônias stood amid vibrant street graffiti and a blue poster reading, “Quem protege a vida das mulheres indígenas [Who protects the lives of Indigenous women?].” The Bienal is a few minutes away from the Guajará Bay, formed by the…
The Iliad, the Odyssey, the Mahābhārata, and the Rāmāyaṇa – the most canonical epics of literature in world history arguably share a commonality: the hero and a sole journey. Johannes A. B. van Buitenen, Simona Sawhney, Gabriel Germain, and Nicholas Justin Allen, for instance, recognise the parallels. Symmetries were drawn between Arjuna and Odysseus, the…
A makeshift house submerged in an aquarium. The walls made of canvas, advertisement banners screaming “for sale” in large, bold, red Thai letters. Seated viewers peer into the submerged house, where bleeding ripples carry the breath of oxygen through water. Mounted atop used materials, the aquarium hums in the stark, almost clinical albeit open-air white…
In many ways, Common Beauty III: The Poetry of Patches, presented by Nonfrasa Gallery and curated by Gatari Surya Kusuma, reminded me of the Tunggul Besi Temple. Imagine a Balinese temple atop the foothills of a sacred volcano, believed to be the abode of the gods—Mount Agung. The temple has no walls, no grandiose architecture—just…
After a 12-year hiatus, the Bangkok Experimental Film Festival (BEFF) founded by Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and curator Gridthiya Gaweewong, is back for its 7th edition. The Festival showcases over 120 experimental works across 29 programs. The singularity of this edition lies in its scale and two notion-defying works: A Conversation with the Sun, and…
Various accounts of those who journeyed through space mention the feeling of “awe” at the beauty and vastness of the universe. So much so that an effect was coined for the specific phenomenon: “the overview effect,” which was a profound cognitive shift experienced by astronauts seeing Earth from space. Upon one’s first encounter with Parallel…