08/02/2025
Welcoming Bangkok Design Week with THE BANGKOK ALTAR installation by “Tangchare” Pornwipa Suriyakarn
Bangkok is a city of altars. From Taoist shrines, Mahayana Buddhist monasteries, vegetarian halls (Rong Jay), to Thevarada Buddhist and Hindu temples, altar cultures have been absorbed into the daily lives of Thais. During the early Rattanakosin period (early 19th century), royal households began to arrange offerings with porcelains from China, especially blue-and-white, and the altar-arrangement practice has become a culture of offering in itself, unique to Siam.
Altar icons vary according to practices and beliefs. With a vast Taoist, Buddhist, and Hindu pantheon to glean inspirations from, the artist “Tangchare” Pornwipa Suriyakarn fused such icons with new imagery from contemporary cultures, making them her own artistic language. She uses a variety of materials to communicate a mixture of regional cultures, both ancient and modern, and gives them new forms, proportions, colors and expressions. The result is a vast, contemporary sanctum that speaks to a new generation of audiences. Her creations of new worshipping icons tells layers of the belief systems in our modern culture.
Pocket Chinese Almanac 2025:
In late 2024, she was asked to create a digital collage for the Pocket Chinese Almanac by Joanna C. Lee and Ken Smith, 2025 Edition. The cover exhibition is on view here at The Kolophon Library.
