Co-ritus with Jakkai Siributr
(participants should bring with them a piece of fabric)

Thursday, 30.October,
17:00
Bergen Kunsthall



Jakkai Siributr invites the public, with emphasis on people with migration experiences, to come together and share their stories by creating embroidery patches. These can be specific moments, experiences or memories that mark an important point in their lives. The sharing can also be performed through embroidery alone.

Attending participants are welcomed to bring along with them a piece of fabric or an old garment that holds a special meaning for them. Once the finished patches are sewn onto the garments, they become wearable art.

For the duration of across, with, nearby, a series of co-ritus events will unfold across four Thursday evenings alongside the Gruppe66 exhibition at the Bergen Kunsthall. The third artist to engage with the concept of co-ritus is Jakkai Siributr; an encounter you can partake in at Bergen Kunsthall on 30th October at 17:00.

Co-ritus is an improvisational and process-based approach to collective art making that was introduced in Bergen in 1966 via the Scandinavian avant-garde and Situationists who formed or collaborated with Gruppe 66. The artists in Gruppe 66 explored participatory strategies of being and making together. Co-ritus challenged conventional roles of authorship and spectatorship, proposing the artwork as a live, communal situation, rather than a fixed object.

This new programme of co-ritus events is inspired by the practice of Gruppe 66. It does so not to look back with nostalgia, but to look forward and engage with a view to the present and the future. Cooperation and interaction with the audience are central to these co-ritus acts. The invited artists and collectives engage in process-based practices over the span of one evening, with durational traces that are shaped by encounter and sharing rather than showing. Whether material, spatial, or affective, these traces remain within the exhibition. In this way, the context in which the historical works are presented continues to shift and evolve.

Make sure to also pay a visit to Jakkai Siributr’ work There’s no Place (ongoing since 2020), which can be experienced at the Textile Industry Museum in Salhus.


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.