In between appearing at conferences – IOTA 24 in September and JMGA in October – (more on those soonish!) I went to Thailand for the first time, thanks to an invitation to exhibit at Atta Gallery in one of IOTA‘s first international exhibits. Handily, ceramic artist Holly O’Meehan and I managed to earn a gran, distributed by our ever-thoughtful DLGSCI here in WA, which funded our trip.
I was a little naive to the richness and depth of Thai jewellery traditions, which thanks to accidentally staying in the jewellery supplies district and a visit with important local maker Rudee Tancharoen, alongside a trip to Silpakorn University to hear jewellery professor Dr Supavee (Pear) Sirin-k-raporn and researcher-designer Khajornsak Napkan speak to IOTA curator Jude van der Merwe and myself, I had a most incredible opportunity to remedy some of my knowledge-gaps with Thailand’s best instructors.
As I shared earlier, Holly and I exhibited in Lost in Translation, curated by Haisang Javanalikhikara and Atty Tantivit, at Atty’s Atta Gallery. We garnered some regional media here, and my work from the show, as well as Holly’s, are still available for sale on the Atta Gallery website.
The website content is extensive – Atta has enabled viewers to see all the works from the show, including a link to a virtual tour of the gallery, recorded at the time the show was up. It’s an incredible archive – I sincerely thank Atty and her team for all of the effort they put into the exhibition and these digital resources.
If you have a hankering for some of these pieces, please follow the links above. And in the mean time, enjoy the slide show I finally put together today. I had fun making that, too 😉
This exhibition is proud to be a part of the IOTA24 Festival, supported by Lotterywest.
Melissa Cameron and Holly O’Meehan received funding from the Department of Local Government, Sports and Cultural Industries in Western Australia to travel to Bangkok and take part in the talks during the opening weekend of the exhibition.