Channels Festival: Kawita Vatanajyankur

Channels Festival is an artist-led collective based in Naarm/Melbourne, Australia which is dedicated to showcasing emerging trends in contemporary video art practice from around the world. In 2021 Channels presents a solo commission by Thai-born artist Kawita Vatanajyankur whose video-based performances explore the ways in which the human body, in particular the female body, is positioned within capitalist frameworks.

Kawita Vatanajyankur is a Thai-born artist whose video-based performances explore the ways in which the human body, in particular the female body, is positioned within capitalist frameworks. Her work seeks to reveal the hidden labour and exploitation behind domestic and commercial work by using her own body as an instrument to undertake a series of repetitive tasks, testing her own physical and psychological endurance.

Commissioned by Channels Festival for BLINDSIDE, Vatanajyankur’s new body of work explores the rising ethical and sustainability concerns in the fast fashion industry. Her research centres on the exploitation and violence of workers and damaging environmental impacts from the use of genetically modified cotton seeds, chemical dyes and fertilizers used to produce fast fashion.