chok dee! (Thai for ‘good luck!’) is a new participatory installation by Hathaikan Kongaunruan that recreates the public and personal shrines commonly found in Thai culture. The exhibition is centered around the Thai folklore goddess of Fortune, Nang Kwak. A figure who has existed for many centuries, Nang Kwak continues to grow in symbolic and cultural value in a rapidly advancing and commercialised Thailand.
Hathaikan brings together sustainable methods of sculpture, printmaking, and found objects to explore themes of Thai identity, devotion and waste. chok dee! marks a continued shift in Hathaikan’s practice, deepening her engagement with her Thai heritage through the lens of contemporary art and environmental awareness.
chok dee! explores these divine offerings through the reinterpretation of ‘Fortune Sticks’, inspired by traditional East and Southeast Asian practices found in many opulent temples across Thailand. The domestic shrine featured within the exhibition is a contemporary homage to the Nang Kwak, inspired by cloth posters often found in Thai homes. These low-cost devotional images reflect everyday acts of reverence, domestic belief and accessibility.
This body of work expands upon on her previous participatory show, LAAB at Longsight Community Art Space with Proforma, where audiences were invited to write letters to their exchanged, unwanted objects in a recreation of her parents’ Thai restaurant. Viewers are invited to shake a container of fortune sticks and draw tarot-style cards, each revealing a bestowed fortune and personal letters from the LAAB exhibition.
By reimagining familiar forms of offering and exchange, the exhibition invites audiences to reflect on what is sacred, what is discarded and how fortune can prosper in multitudes of ways.
About Hathaikan Kongaunruan
Hathaikan is a socially engaged Artist, Facilitator and Producer who creates collaborative work that challenges how we assign value to materials and objects. Using DIY methods and found materials, her practice resists systems of overconsumption by transforming the discarded into playful sculptures and interactive installations rooted in environmental care and resourcefulness. Influenced by her upbringing as a second-generation immigrant, revisiting Thailand deepened her exploration into folklore, rituals, and spiritual symbols through an eco-feminist lens. Hathaikan invites viewers to slow down, notice the overlooked, and imagine new relationships with waste.
Find out more about Hathaikan Kongaunruan here.
Join us for our exhibition preview taking place on Thu 19 Jun, for more information about the preview please click here.
