Homing Instinct

Homing Instinct
Ananta Thitanat, Ari Angkasa, Dieneke Jansen, Kahurangiariki Smith with Buntheun Oung
8 October – 2 December 2024

Homing Instinct is a collaborative moving image project featuring artist commissions related to housing, home and belonging. It is a partnership between The Physics Room (Ōtautahi), CIRCUIT (Te Whanganui-a-Tara), Composite (Naarm), and STORAGE (Bangkok); the project will be shown at each of the sites of its three new commissions. As such, the work also shifts through states of belonging and meeting for the first time, hosting and being hosted, being located and being in transit. The first iteration of Homing Instinct was launched at The Physics Room and Enjoy Contemporary Art Space in Aotearoa, New Zealand, in July. Now, it’s time for Bangkok to embrace this transformative journey.

Homing Instinct began with a conversation around housing inequalities in Aotearoa. It evolved into an exhibition project with three new moving image commissions by Ananta Thitanat, Ari Angkasa, and Kahurangiariki Smith with Buntheun Oung. These are accompanied by an existing work by Dieneke Jansen, which sparked this series of new commissions. Collectively, Homing Instinct intends to hold a metaphorical prism in front of ideas we may have about housing, home and belonging, generating more expansive conversations about identity and its connections to place.

Selected from an open call by each commissioning organisation, these works take a distinct perspective, yet the currents of identity and diaspora and reflections on family histories form points of convergence. These works have been developed with an awareness that they will move across different cultural contexts, yet arguably they each deploy strategic acts of resistance to easy consumption. The works rely on translation, nonlinear narrative logic or multiple temporalities, and as such they disrupt any expectation of seamless transition between contexts.