Kelsey Merreck Wagner

Golden Land Project
River
Weavings of discarded plastics and fabric, 84 x 200 cm
Land and Mountains
Weavings of discarded plastics and fabric, 84 x 200 cm

The Isan region accounts for one third of the total land mass of Thailand. Its geographical characteristics are distinctive from the rest of the country; comprising the Mekong River in the East and several mountain ranges bordering the Central region in the West and Cambodia in the South.

Thailand as a country is home for over 4,000 species of rice and more than half of those varieties are grown exclusively in Isan. Several important rivers, originating in the high  mountains, together with the Mekong River and its tributaries feed into the agricultural bounty of the Isan plateau.

“Golden Land” is a project by Kelsey Merreck Wagner in collaboration with Warin Lab Contemporary. It celebrates “rice” as a gift from the land and rivers through an installation of weaved tapestries. Primarily using scrap materials from Jim Thompson’s fabric production as well as discarded consumer throw-aways, these large scaled weavings provide an immersive experience for the visitors. Upon entering the space, the visitors encounter 2 hanging weavings; one represents a river with its blue hue, the other represents rice, land and mountains with its shades of white, green, and brown. Visually the artwork honors land and rivers as the source of sustenance and economic value. Paradoxically, the weaved materials evidently manifest the glaring truth that plastic pollution has become ubiquitous in natural and built-up environments resulting from human’s mismanagement and negligence.

At Jim Thompson Farm Tour, visitors are invited to join a collaborative weaving project using thrown-away plastics as well as leftover materials from Jim Thompson’s fabric production.

Kelsey Merreck Wagner (b. 1990) as an eco-artist (textiles), anthropologist, and activist, focused on human-environment relationships, conservation, and plastic consumption/waste infrastructure in her research-based art practice. Since 2017, her art practice focuses solely on these topics, using recycled and found objects collected both locally and globally, and working both independently and collaboratively. Wagner’s ongoing body of work is a series of textile wall hangings made entirely from recycled plastic bags. While her eco-art began in the United States of America, over the past 8 years she has extensively lived, traveled, worked, and completed arts-based research about environmental issues across Southeast Asia. She has exhibited work internationally in Cambodia, Thailand, Canada, and Italy; as well as across the United States including Illinois, Texas, New York, North Carolina, and Michigan; and has done curatorial work with and for art, culture and education institutions around the world. She values community art making as a liminal space for advocacy and activism, and provides eco-art workshops to university and community groups alongside her exhibited work.

Text Credit : Warin Lab Contemporary