Bangkok based Gallery Soulflower’s first major show this year hosts works by artists from Thailand and India.

‘Dreaming in Public’ is curated by Brian Curtin. The participating artists are Sheba Chhachhi, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook, Jakkai Siributr and Hema Upadhyay. The process of dreaming can refer to one’s unconscious thought processes, the amorphous and infinite world of the imagination, desire and ambition in terms of change, extrasensory perception, ideal experience and much more in terms of history and theory. The idea of public - on the other hand - is distinct from general notions of the private & the personal, commonly afforded to the ‘state of dreaming’. Often, ideas of public comprise community and consensus.

‘Dreaming in Public’ (May–July, 2009) points out how notions of both ‘dreaming’ as well as ‘public’ may get affected less by their juxtaposition than mere mutual infiltration. How exactly are notions of non-private and private, impersonal and personal, free-will and societal structures, the unconscious and conscious individual desires different from contemporary realities that are understood through art?

The show focuses on certain radicalism as implied by the title. The title of the show is a definition of visual art, which gains its potency owing to a variety of implications. Each artist draws on the rich suggestions of an ostensible dichotomy evident between different spheres of experience and thus insists on the challenge of forms of subjectivity, which is implied by the idea of ‘dreaming’. The works ask us to look anew at the issues like the influence of canonical art histories, the cultural significance of particular media and globalization, national identity with contemporary art practices.