Sawangwongse Yawnghwe, Somniferum II, 2022, oil on canvas, dimensions unknown. Photo: Sawangwongse Yawnghe.
Work by Sawangwongse Yawnghwe is included in the group exhibition Between Borders: Migration, Power, and Boundless Imagination currently on view at the Arnhem Museum in the Netherlands.
From the press release and catalogue:
All over the world, people move across borders for all kinds of reasons. In the 21st century, more people than ever migrate for all kinds of political, economic and environmental reasons. At the same time, travelling is increasingly difficult for a great many people. How difficult, or easy, it is, is often determined by your passport. Which countries welcome you and which do not? And when you are in another country, when do you feel at home?
The opium that is widely grown and from which heroin is made, is brought across the border every day. It is mainly transported to Western countries. Sawangwongse painted the opium plants as luscious still lifes. It’s a reference to painting in previous centuries when colonial governments engaged in a large-scale opium trade in their former colonies.
Learn more here.
Between Borders is open through October 22, 2023.