Weaving Matter and Memory
Bangkok Kunsthalle in partnership with Bottega Veneta
Installation view of Weaving Matter and Memory (2026). Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
Weaving Matter and Memory is an exhibition curated by Somsuda Piamsumrit, and presented at Bangkok Kunsthalle, in partnership with Bottega Veneta. On view from 14 June to 5 July 2026, it has been developed in close collaboration with Louise Trotter, Creative Director at Bottega Veneta. The four participating Thai artists are Jakkai Siributr, Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, Supawich Weesapen, and Teerapon Sisung.
The show is inspired by Bottega Veneta’s signature intreccio leather weave, which has defined the fashion house’s iconic bags since it was founded in Vicenza, Veneto, in 1966. The artists use weaving, deconstructing, reassembling and unfolding to explore the relationship between matter and memory. In their works, viewers can observe traces of time, labour and process in their making.
Jakkai Siributr, Despatch, 2025. Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
From Jakkai Siributr, Despatch (2025) is made up of five large-scale textile works composed from used garments donated by elderly residents of the Seto Inland Sea in Japan. The work was first shown at the Setouchi Triennale in 2025. The donors’ lived experiences are carried by their clothing, and reassembled–or woven together–by the artist to create a patchwork of stories. The word “despatch” is spelled in the old way, to question the transmission of culture from generation to generation through tangible materials.
Supawich Weesapen, The Super Massive Finger Trap, 2025. Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
The Super Massive Finger Trap (2024) by Supawich Weesapen is a sculpture made of reflective fabric typically used in traffic jackets, whose glow visitors will discover when they take a photo of it on their phone cameras with flash. Through the work, the artist draws a connection between human beings and digital data. Using the image of a thumb, he refers to contemporary society’s collective smartphone addiction, and comments on whether human beings have agency over data usage, or if they are overwhelmed by it.
Teerapon Sisung, Weaving of the Divine Form, 2023. Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
Weaving of the Divine Form (2023) by Teerapon Sisung is accomplished through a meditative metal weaving process. By knitting, weaving and coiling, the artist has created his interpretation of the divine land as presented in Traiphum, the book of the “Three Worlds”, across desire, form and the formless. The 33-metre-long manuscript from the 18th century consists of coloured illustrations of Buddhist cosmology. In the artist’s hands, the motifs are transformed into delicate, ethereal, floating sculptures.
Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, We Are Family, 2021 and Ash Flowers, 2022. Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
Rounding up the exhibition is Imhathai Suwatthanasilp with the works We Are Family (2021) and Ash Flowers (2022). The artist crocheted, knotted and wove dark-coloured human hair—some her own, some donated—into forms representing leaves, flowers, small organisms and skeletal remains of species from the sky, land and sea, to suggest the devastating effects of bushfires and air pollution on the natural environment.
The exterior of Bangkok Kunsthalle for the exhibition Weaving Matter and Memory, in partnership with Bottega Venata. Image courtesy of Bangkok Kunsthalle.
This is the latest in a series of collaborations between Bottega Veneta and cultural institutions. For Venice Biennale 2026, the fashion house is supporting If All Time is Eternally Present, presented by the Pier Luigi Nervi Foundation, which brings together moving image works by Tai Shani, Meriem Bennani & Orian Barki, and Kandis Williams, projected nightly onto the façade of Palazzo Nervi Scattolin. At the Leeum Museum of Art, they are presenting Inside Other Spaces: Environments by Women Artists, 1956–76, a major group exhibition dedicated to immersive environments created by pioneering women artists between from the 1950s to the 1970s. Both displays are ongoing.
Bangkok Kunsthalle is one of two projects under Khao Yai Art, along with Khao Yai Art Forest. As a cultural institution, it is devoted to art, cinema, music, dance, literature, architecture and other creative languages, and represents a new model of art museum. Housed in the abandoned Thai Wattana Panich building, it was a leading printing house before a devastating fire in 2021. The raw, industrial Brutalist complex has been home for creative dialogue in Thailand and more broadly Southeast Asia since its official opening in January 2024.
There is a panel discussion this Sunday, 21 June, from 2pm to 4pm, at Bangkok Kunsthalle for Weaving Matter and Memory, where the artists Jakkai Siributr, Imhathai Suwatthanasilp, Supawich Weespen and Teerapon Sisang will be in conversation with curator Somsuda Piamsamrit as moderator. They will discuss the transformation of craft from functional objects in everyday life into a contemporary artistic language that reflects identity, narratives, and memory. The conversation will be conducted in Thai. Sign up here.