Curatorial Statement | Artist's Résumé

'My work primarily focuses on the sense of loss and displacement I experience as an immigrant in New Zealand. In transitioning from one culture to another my sense of identity remains unresolved...'

Waroonwan Thongvanit's video installation True Confessions wraps three DVD projections around the gallery walls. The juxtaposed imagery mirrors the individual soundtracks that spill from each projection but blur together into white noise. At the centre of all the images is the artist: her face, her observations, her activities. True Confessions is Thongvanit's ongoing video diary. Infused with the confessional ethos of reality TV, the work moves in that ambiguous space between truth and fabrication.

Studied, yet frank, the artist pours out her innermost thoughts on a break-up. Seated on a bed, drinking white wine as Oasis plays mournfully in the background, she reveals the most intimate details to us, even holding up private mementos to the camera to show us: notes, a Polaroid snapshot. Maudlin with alcohol, at one point she is sobbing, overcome with emotion. In other footage we see the artist at home in her native Thailand, attending a Buddhist ceremony with her parents. Back in Christchurch (her adopted city since attending art school there), the artist entertains friends, young Thai men who mug sheepishly for the camera.

But mostly we watch Thongvanit herself, her beautiful and compelling features and her cathartic gestures. We sense the dislocation of a young woman living away from her family and her culture, in an antipodean city which prides itself on its 'Englishness'. Yet, despite this openness, we are given only teasing glimpses into her life. The camera frames only part of her face and the words which we grasp through the swirl of sounds give only fragments of her narration. We are always aware of the precise framing of the camera, her poise in front of it and the seductive nature of the images she offers us.

Emma Bugden