Mel Chuaiprasit (She/Her)
My practice hopes to explore how sensory and material experimentation, rooted in traditional artefacts and practices, can help to understand ideas about cultural heritage and belonging, particularly as someone of dual heritage. I want to use traditional techniques as a framework for examining memory whilst playing with material to create physical displays of the mixed Thai and British culture I exist within.
The focus of my work is often on playing with the process and filtering my own experience through it, instead of technical accuracy. I would like to create objects of a shared history, a display of gratitude from me, to all the people that allowed me to exist within the context I am currently living. My current project is embroidering for the first time, on a 6 metre long piece of hand-woven fabric, telling a story of my parents and our family. I hope that my work shows the time and care involved in the process of crafting, along with the excitement of learning and the enjoyment of making.
”From them, through me, to mine”
This work began with a six-meter long, hand-woven piece of hessian cloth. It was a wedding gift to my parents and I have begun what I think will be a lifelong task of experimenting with the traditional technique of embroidery whilst telling the story of my family.
Alongside the tapestry are filled jars that act as the tactile cultural archive of my family. They show sensory expressions of a dual heritage culture and are my attempt to capture examples of ritual, process and routine.
I have tried to mirror two types of technique, the tapestry being traditional and the jars contain those that are familiar and commonplace for our family. They contain a range of domestic products created through thrift and a commitment to re-use.
