Museum MACAN in Jakarta, Indonesia, is currently presenting Sing Dance Cry Breathe | as their world collides on to the screen, the first solo exhibition of Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai in Indonesia, from November 30, 2024 – April 6, 2025. Based between New York and Bangkok, Arunanondchai’s practice explores a variety of themes, bridging deeply personal experiences and wider social commentaries. At Museum MACAN, he is presenting works from 2018 onwards that focus on symbols associated with creation and renewal myths across cultures. Sing Dance Cry Breathe highlights our collective desire for renewal and the spiritual associations we create with nature, with the phoenix appearing as the most prominent motif at the show. The art exhibition is curated by Venus Lau, director, Museum MACAN, who joins STIR for an interview that explores the show in greater depth.

Humans have long yearned for a rupture from the existing temporality, to be bridged to another dimension or world that only emerges after an ending and escape from the limbo of the forever present. – Venus Lau, director, Museum MACAN

At Sing Dance Cry Breathe, Arunanondchai’s visual art blurs the line between human figuration and the spiritual beings that he portrays. Several works feature fiery human figures in triumphant, skyward-facing poses, evoking the image of the phoenix rising from the ashes. The phoenix motif appears perhaps most majestically in The Dance of Earthly Delights (2024), in which two of the birds flank the composition, seemingly performing an avian dance.

Lau discusses Arunanondchai's approach to representing beings such as the phoenix, telling STIR, “He creates a dialogue between the viewer and the spiritual forces that shape our lives by employing anthropomorphic representations and symbolic imagery… These symbols bridge the gap between the visible and the invisible, allowing the audience to contemplate their relationship with the unseen forces of the world around them, both in the natural world and within themselves.” Lau asserts that by blurring the lines between human and spiritual beings, Arunanondchai prompts us to consider the conflation of narratives from our lives and the natural world around us. One should not take her statement literally; however, as in the case of the divine bird, we should think of humankind’s capacity for rebirth in the form of self-improvement, as well as the cycles of rejuvenation that we see in plants, as an example.

Lau equates the themes of death and resurrection, associated with the phoenix, to human beings. She says, “It is a scenario where you destroy what you have in promise for a different future that you are promised to be a part of.” She expands on this in a more poetic sense, saying, “Humans have long yearned for a rupture from the existing temporality, to be bridged to another dimension or world that only emerges after an ending and escape from the limbo of the forever present.” One could approach this as a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the monotony of our daily existence and a desire to change the course of our lives radically.

The exhibition breaks away from spiritual symbolism to present a creation myth of another sort with the video installation No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5 (2018). The video explores an abstract kind of Cold War-era nationalism, which the artist discussed with Indonesian media house Grafis Masa Kini earlier this year. The multimedia artist said, “I think all people in Southeast Asia can probably relate to (it)...it’s sort of our contemporary origin myth.” There is a touch of the spiritual here, however, as one may spot a snake in one of the three videos that make up No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5. The snake is a creation symbol across cultures, and in Arunanondchai’s native Thailand, its more magical counterpart, the ‘naga’, has had a wide variety of cultural connotations. However, since the early 2000s, which saw a major push in Thailand to preserve and celebrate its national heritage, the ‘naga’ has come to be associated with creation.

Museum MACAN’s show also features Yggdrasil (2024), centred on the Norse tree of rebirth. The tree is believed to be the source of new life following Ragnarök, the apocalyptic battle between good and evil. The show suggests that Arunanondchai’s presentation of rebirth is a call to action, prompting us to change our lives for the better. However, just as the serpent ‘Níðhöggr’ gnaws at the roots of ‘Yggdrasil’ in an attempt to plunge the universe back into an entropic state of conflict between divine forces, we too must be wary of the elements in our own lives that threaten to plunge us back into a state of torpor.

‘Sing Dance Cry Breathe | as their world collides on to the screen’ is on view at Museum MACAN, Jakarta from November 30, 2024 –  April 6, 2025.