Performance

Chinese War Memorial, corner of Keefer and Columbia Streets

Produced through the support of the Contemporary Art Gallery Burrard Marina Field House Residency

Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn is the eighth and final artist to participate in Twenty-Three Days at Sea, a travelling artist residency originated by Access Gallery and produced in partnership with the Contemporary Art Gallery and Burrard Arts Fuoundation. Following her time aboard a container vessel to Shanghai in Twenty-Three Days at Sea, Skoolisariyaporn has taken up residence at the Burrard Marina Field House Studio to develop and produce a participatory performance work as well as a single channel video, Unexploded Ordnance, which will be exhibited at Access Gallery in the residency exhibition Twenty-Three Days at Sea, Chapter Two: Michael Drebert, Lili Huston-Herterich, Rebecca Moss, Sikarnt Skoolisariyaporn, opening Friday, September 8, 2017.

Skoolisariyaporn's artistic practice cuts across mediums of moving image, performance, text and installation, and explores notions of human and non-human history embedded in geological spacetime: the history of mankind as remember by the earth and its landscape. She has a persistent interest in the landscape of the sea, particularly as a "seascape" reveals itself only in the fourth dimension of time. In its constant shifting through the rolling waves and wind, she suggests, the ocean might suggest a new way to understand and approach history, spatiality, and the disastrousness of our political and climatological present.

In Object without Shadow, Skoolisariyaporn re-enacts a ritual she remembers practicing with her Thai Chinese family on the seventh month of Chinese calendar, the period when it is believed that ghosts are able to make a momentary reappearance from the afterlife. In this custom, paper replicas of desirable objects – such as jewelry, iPhones, computers and majong sets - are burned as offerings to ancestors. Skoolisariyaporn’s performance reconsiders this ritual in relation to the myriad ghosts produced under capitalism: from the spectral return of living things, to the invisible labour of historical Chinese immigrants to Vancouver. In this way she conjures a relationship between the North Pacific Ocean in the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, as a theatre for both colonialism and neoliberalism.

Skoolisariyaporn studied at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf (2013), holds a BA from Kingston University in London, UK (2012), and an MA in Fine Art from Goldsmiths at the University of London (2015). She lives and works between Düsseldorf and Bangkok. Recent exhibitions and performances include Chongqing Changjiang Contemporary Museum, Chongqing, China; Biquini Wax, Mexico City; Deptford Lounge, London, UK; Kunstakademie Düsseldorf; Gruentaler 9, Berlin; and Five Years Project, London, UK. Skoolisariyaporn lives and works in Düsseldorf and Bangkok.

Twenty-Three Days at Sea: A Travelling Artist Residency is produced by Access Gallery in partnership with Contemporary Art Gallery and the Burrard Arts Foundation. Further support has been generously provided by the Hamber Foundation. Assistance in Asia is offered by China Residencies, and at the Port of Vancouver by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Access is grateful for the ongoing support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia government through the BC Arts Council and BC Gaming, the City of Vancouver, and our donors, members, and volunteers.

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About the Burrard Marina Field House

CAG uses the Burrard Marina Field House as a studio for socially-engaged participatory projects in Vancouver. From this site, we develop multi-year community-focused residency initiatives, many of which evolve into off-site projects. This program moves beyond conventional exhibition making, echoing the founding origins of the gallery in 1971 where artists were offered support toward the production of new work offering new ways for individuals to encounter, participate and connect with art and artists.

The Field House Studio Residency Program is generously supported by Vancouver Park Board and the City of Vancouver, along with many private and individual donors. Please visit our website for a full list of supporters. For further details about the program, all forthcoming residencies and associated events visit our website at www.contemporaryartgallery.ca and follow the blog at www.burrardmarinafieldhouse.blog

For 2016-2019 CAG acknowledges the generous support for the Field House Studio Residency Program by the Vancouver Foundation.

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About the Contemporary Art Gallery

Established in 1971 the Contemporary Art Gallery is the longest standing free public art gallery in Vancouver dedicated exclusively to presenting contemporary art. By the early 1990s the program expanded providing some of the first institutional exhibitions for many important Vancouver artists, including Brian Jungen, Geoffrey Farmer, Germaine Koh and Steven Shearer. The Contemporary Art Gallery is a publicly funded institution, generously supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the City of Vancouver and the Province of BC through the BC Arts Council and the BC Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch.

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