Jakkai Siributr

JAKKAI SIRIBUTR (b 1969)

Jakkai Siributr lives in Bangkok, Thailand, and is one of Southeast Asia's leading contemporary artists, working primarily in the textile medium. He is known for his intricately handmade tapestries, quilts and installations, which convey powerful responses to contemporary and historical societal issues in Thailand.

In 2021 he launched Phayao-a-Porter, a project that supports artisans and studio assistants whose businesses and livelihoods were affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Siributr sourced found and pre-used garments and invited artisans from Phayao province in northern Thailand to contribute to embellishing them with unique figurative appliqué designs in collaboration with his studio. Thirty percent from the sale of each jacket is given back to the community as scholarships, healthcare and emergency funds.

Jakkai Siributr studied Textile and Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA; and Printed Textile Design, at Philadelphia University, USA. He has exhibited widely, with notable exhibitions including Exploring the Cosmos: The Stupa as a Buddhist Symbol, Asian Civilizations Museum, Singapore (2013); Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past, Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, California, USA; Link Tradition and Future, (2012); and the 2nd Chongqing Biennale for Young Artists, The Art Museum of Sichuan Fine Art Institute, Chongqing, China (2011). His works are in the public collections of the National Taiwan Musm of Fine Art, Taiwan; Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, USA; Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA; Vehbi Koc Foundation, Istanbul, Turkey; and the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore.

Opening in November 2024, the first UK exhibition of his work, There’s no Place, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, surveys Siributr's practice and includes a transformation of one of the Whitworth’s core collection galleries into the latest iteration of the artist's long-term project 'There’s no Place'. Exploring ideas of home and belonging, this collaborative embroidery piece creates an ongoing dialogue between the artist, the community of Koung Jor Shan Refugee Camp and viewers around the world and was featured in The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, presented by the Bangkok Art Biennale as an Official Collateral Event at the 2024 Venice Biennale.