Thai Artist Wins Han Nefken Foundation’s Video Art Production Grant
By Annabel Preston
Portrait of SOM SUPAPARINYA. Photo by Kornkrit Jianpinidnan. Courtesy the Han Nefkens Foundation, Barcelona.
Chiang Mai-based video and installation artist Som Supaparinya has been awarded the Han Nefkens Foundation—Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant 2024. She will receive USD 15,000 to produce a new work, to be exhibited next year by six partner institutions: Sàn Art, Ho Chi Minh City; Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; Museion, Bolzano; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Hiroshima; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen; and Rockbund Art Museum, Shanghai.
Established in 2023 by the Barcelona-based nonprofit Han Nefkens Foundation, the grant intends to foster contemporary artistic production in the video art field by supporting artists in Southeast Asia who have not had opportunities to exhibit widely on a global scale. This year’s edition was held in memory of the trailblazing Vietnamese American artist Dinh Q. Lê, cofounder of Sàn Art and an initiator of the grant, who passed away in April of this year.
An international ten-person jury comprising art critics and curators selected Supaparinya for her “unique and skillful form of video-making [involving] intensive research processes, a focus on both historical and contemporary sociopolitical issues, a profound connection to land in local and global contexts, as well as intensive filming processes mingling documentary and experimental visions.”
Expressing her gratitude, Supaparinya said: “When it comes to staying trendy and radical in the era of video art, it’s quite a challenge in terms of technicalities, approach, meaning, [and support] . . . I am really appreciative [of] a grant devoted to the development of video art [in the region].”
Her work is currently on display at the National Gallery of Thailand as part of the Bangkok Art Biennale, which runs through February 25, 2025.
Annabel Preston is assistant editor at ArtAsiaPacific.
