Womanifesto: Flowing Connections

12 September – 30 December, 2023

Bangkok Art & Culture Centre

Womanifesto: Flowing Connections offers a look into Womanifesto’s significant projects starting from the very first exhibition in 1997 up to the present. The exhibition features over 30 artists and showcases works created or exhibited at previous events, and works created more recently by some of the artists who have participated in Womanifesto projects over the years.

In keeping with the ethos of Womanifesto, offered is WeMend – a designated, open at all times workshop space inviting artists, students and the visiting public to take part and interact. Additionally, material from the Archive and more recent and ongoing projects – Gatherings 2020, Lasuemo (Last Sunday each month), and Baan Womanifesto set up in Udonthani province – have been gathered making visible Womanifesto’s sustained development as an artist-led initiative since the very beginning.

Womanifesto was established by a group of women artists, writers and activists with the aim of hosting gatherings every two years of women artists from Asian and other countries. As one of the rare artist-organised projects of its kind to have emerged and developed from Southeast Asia, Womanifesto remains agile and continues to provide significant opportunities for women artists and cultural practitioners to connect and re-connect. Starting with presenting group exhibitions in 1997 and 1999, Womanifesto instantly took on a life of its own and transformed into a meeting and sharing point based on friendship and care. While the original aim was to present exhibitions to strengthen links between and the visibility of women artists from the region and beyond, that aim developed to include exploration and valuing of local cultures including artisanship, to explore links between traditional and contemporary art practices. Adopting fluidity as a strategy, Womanifesto developed projects to consider and open up diverse ways of doing by not setting final outcomes but supporting for things to evolve organically, with the focus also being on exchange and passing on of knowledge down the generations.