Since the early 1990s, Bangkok-based artist Pinaree Sanpitak has produced a diverse body of work exploring the human form and the various qualities associated with the female body. Her installation Hanging by a Thread consists of eighteen hammocks woven from printed cotton textiles, known as paa-lai, used throughout Thailand for clothing and other purposes. When Thailand suffered severe floods during the 2011 monsoon season, royal-sponsored relief efforts included the distribution of these traditional cloths. Sanpitak began working with the paa-lai fabrics when the floods forced her to temporarily abandon her studio and seek alternative materials and methods for her art practice. The hammocks convey the sense of solace that she discovered in working with these traditional materials. Their curving shape recalls the artist’s broader oeuvre, in which she has often used abstracted images of the female breast and the offering bowl to invoke notions of fertility, sustenance, comfort, and refuge.

Pinaree Sanpitak: Hanging by a Thread is installed with one of the museum’s most important Southeast Asian sculptures. Together, these artworks suggest the complexities of regional history and of contemporary religious and cultural life in Thailand.