Jakkai Siributr
There’s no Place, ongoing since 2020

Jakkai Siributr’s project began at a refugee camp at a border between Thailand and Myanmar where people from stateless Shan communities were invited to share their life experiences through embroidery. The multi-coloured scenes show a spectrum of experiences and personal stories from daily life; traumas, hopes, memories, idealisations of safety, children, soldiers, and landscapes are all depicted.

Siributr’s long-running textile project speaks to the impact of nation-states and colonialism on indigenous groups. Considered the largest minority group in Myanmar, Shan are a displaced population that is often relegated to Southeast Asia’s upland region. They have fled decades of discrimination and violence and are often denied employment and basic healthcare.

There’s no Place is comprised of textile banners and also offers a series of workshops that continue the project. Each piece may be touched, altered, and reinterpreted by viewers and workshop participants. Resisting fixed authorship, anyone and everyone can participate in stitching the narrative using black, white, and grey threads, adding scenes, details, or personal messages. The imagery is therefore an invitation to engage. Moving across different places and people, identification and conversation are nurtured to create a relationship between intimacy and distance. The work is an embodiment of poetic knowledge, by means of neighbouring and love as a public force, as it creates closeness between distant groups of people with varying experiences.

The banners are different sizes and hang overhead to resemble a shelter under which the collective histories of disparate communities can be touched. In Salhus the project is expanded via workshops for former textile workers and local communities, adding new layers of memory, labour, and experiences.

The workshops take place during the opening programme on 13 and 14 September and again on 25 and 26 October from 13:00 to 15:00.

Jakkai Siributr will also present a co-ritus event at Bergen Kunsthall on Thursday 30 September at 17:00.

Jakkai Siributr (b. 1969, Bangkok) works with textiles to explore the connections between tradition and modernity. He is specifically known for his intricate, hand-made tapestries, quilts and installations, which convey powerful responses to contemporary and historical issues in Thailand. Siributr’s embroidered installations reflect on themes of violence, religious symbolism, migration, identity, and personal memory. In 2021, he launched Phayao-a-Porter, a project that supports artisans and studio assistants whose businesses and livelihoods have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this, his studio works with artisans from Phayao Province in northern Thailand to embellish second-hand garments with unique figurative appliqué designs. Thirty percent of the sales of each jacket go back to the local community in the form of scholarships, health care, and relief efforts. Siributr also currently works with the Shan Youth Organization in Northern Thailand. He lives and works in Bangkok and Chiang Mai.