Making the Unknown Known (2023) by Wantanee Siripattananuntakul

Making the Unknown Known examines how living beings and environments are transformed into political, economic, and territorial assets in Southeast Asia. Through a three-channel video installation, the work traces how power reorganises life by converting it into property, commodities, and resources to be administered.

The installation unfolds through three figures. The white elephant appears as a royal possession and instrument of sovereignty, revealing how animal life becomes embedded within structures of political authority. The African Grey parrot circulates through luxury markets and transnational trade networks, exposing how living beings are extracted from ecological relations and redefined as objects of exchange. Yet the parrot also remains a witnessing presence, complicating the systems that attempt to reduce life to property.

Between them, the Mekong River appears during periods of extreme drought, registering how water systems are reorganised through dam construction, territorial planning, and cross-border governance.

Moving across ritual, trade, and infrastructure, the work traces how power operates through the material transformation of bodies, habitats, and circulation routes.