Jakkai Siributr / Thailand b.1969 / 18/28: The Singhaseni Tapestries (installation view) 2017–18 / 14 parts: cotton, silk, synthetic fabric, embroidery, found fabrics, disassembled garments, luggage trunks, sound / Installed dimensions variable / Purchased 2018. Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art Foundation / Collection: Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art / © Jakkai Siributr / Image courtesy: Jakkai Siributr

Jakkai Siributr
18/28: The Singhaseni Tapestries 2017–2018

Not Currently on Display

Jakkai Siributr’s 18/28: The Singhaseni Tapestries 2017–18 explores the connections between the artist’s family and Thailand’s political history. At the heart of the project is a homage to Siributr’s mother, whose five dresses are embroidered with scenes from news and family photographs. These scenes connect with passages from her diaries that can be heard as a recording in the centre of the installation of suspended tapestries — works that are made from hand-stitched fabrics acquired from seven aunts on the artist’s maternal side.

Siributr’s mother was from the ancient Thai house of Singhaseni and 18/28 is the address of the compound where Siributr’s great-grandmother took in the wife and seven daughters of Chit Singhaseni, a royal page executed over the mysterious death in 1946 of the Thai monarch King Rama VIII.

Jakkai Siributr’s textile and embroidery works address Thailand’s unofficial histories, including the troubled coexistence of Buddhism and Islam in the south of the country. His creations embody a tension between subject matter (conflicts driven by discrimination against minority groups) and form (the sensuality of embellished fabrics). Through his practice, Siributr encourages values associated with Buddhism — compassion, kindness and tolerance.