Pam Virada

Ozu Sconces
2024, UV print on stainless steel, found tray, metal, candle

Late Spring / 晩春 (1949), Early Summer / 麥秋 (1951), Early Spring / 早春 (1956), Late Autumn / 秋日和 (1960), The End of Summer / 小早川家の秋 (1961), An Autumn Afternoon / 秋刀魚の味 (1962)

Fascinated by Yasujiro Ozu’s portrayal of domestic drama and the complexities of familial relationships in Confucianist households, the work looks into his thematic exploration of time, where Ozu subtly alters familiar plots to reflect a cyclical understanding of human experiences. The titles of Ozu’s films, evoking the four seasons albeit in no particular order, symbolize the non-linear and repetitive nature of familial dynamics and domesticity. Virada’s examination of these evolving family structures mirrors Ozu’s perspective, portraying family not as a static entity but as a recurring system akin to changing weather patterns. She repurposes trays collected over time, originally intended for serving, changing their role to reflect light. The candles, in turn, re-animate the images.

Whale Park, Tree-lined street
2024, UV print on tempered glass, privacy film, looped projection, 67 x 40cm

Across a pair of windows, projections of looped videos of moving light appear against an urban landscape. Though the viewer is positioned as a voyeur, these partitions also function as objects of intimacy and protection, made to prevent outsiders from seeing what lies within. The suspenseful act of exposure is made palpable by the material of window film, as if the video can be peeled away like residual sediment, in the same way tree bark or a roll of photographic film can be stripped or unveiled.

Descendant (spine x/bag of bones)
2024, chains, clay, glass, beads, marbles, fabric, wood, dimensions variable

Descendant (spine x/afterlife)
2024, chains, clay, glass, beads, found glasses on wood, dimensions variable

Descendant (spine x/droplet)
2024, chains, clay, glass, beads, water, wood, dimensions variable

Descendant (spine x)
2024, metal chains, found glass, glass balls, beads, 700cm, 800cm, 950cm

Exhibited at Housewarming: Activations for a new location, de Appel, Amsterdam, NL

Resembling a sun-catcher, the work mirrors and responds to the available light sources within the space, including sunlight and the projector’s light intertwining them to form constellations. This process incorporates remnants and ruins of history, resulting in a tapestry of multiplied temporalities and fractured zones.

Eclipse of the Moon
2023, UV print on stainless steel, found object, lit candle, dimensions variable

Always coming home
2023, stainless steel chains, dimension variable

Exhibited at How Far, How Close, Aranya Art Center, Qinhuangdao, CN. Curated by Leo Li Chen and Mijoo Park

The installation disrupts the Atrium of the Aranya Art Center with a chain curtain that divides the open-air and enclosed areas. Shaped to resemble a sectional view of a house, the installation resonates with the artist's practice of recreating homes as models, drawing attention to the intimate spaces derived from old floor-plans. The partition invites to contemplate what lies on either side, serving as a border that divides the space. The delicate curtain beckons to physically engage with it and serves as a symbol of domesticity, creating a sense of enclosure while acknowledging the emptiness conveyed by its sparse permeability.

A Trick of Light
2023, solo exhibition

Exhibited at Meno Avilys Cinematheque, in collaboration with Rupert Residency. Curated by Gerda Paliušytė and Ona Kotryna Dikavičiūtė

INT. LIVING ROOM—AFTERNOON
Through the window of an abandoned manor, we see a park with dense trees bathed in the evening light. From time to time, a few people walk by. The window is dirty and the lights are hazy, rendering people’s faces indistinguishable.

PERSON 1 (V.O.)
No one seems to notice how the sun is bathing that patch of grass in the park, illuminating it in an unreal way. The sun is slowly setting and the patch of warmth gradually fades away. The shadow of the trees unnoticeably slides out of view.

Sonnet for Si Chang
2022, digitized 8mm film, 02:16 mins

A verse from a sonnet written by the 6th King of Thailand overlaps the elusive scenes of Si Chang island. The film explores the remnants of the landscape accompanied with desirous narration.

Prelude: Points of Departure
2022, single channel, 8:10 mins

When there is an imbalance, the house malfunctions and decays. Using the elements as a point of departure, Virada’s work navigates each element as coordinates for domestic tales of hauntings bound in space and time, turning the interior space into an infinite expanse.

No Transcendence, Only Immanence
2022, 8mm looped film projection, beads, clay, water, found glass, jasmine tea, dimensions variable

Feng Shui is a practice used to organise the human-built environment in ancient China. It is an ancestral knowledge which initially functioned as a mechanism for women and peasants to locate themselves within Confucianism's patriarchal system. This vision has been dislocated from its original context in western imaginaries. In No Transcendence, Only Immanence, the deterioration of the courthouse is paired with the concept of hauntings in Feng Shui. The artist delves into these concepts by examining the presence of water leakages, excesses and imbalances of elements in the exhibition space. She adopts Feng Shui's spatial reconfiguration tools by 'shedding light' onto hand-spun bead curtain to counterbalance the surplus of water in the room. Through the voice of her female family members reading poems from 'The Book of Odes', a collection of poems focusing on Confucian ideology, the work highlights diasporic-Chinese women's awareness of perpetual hauntings in space as a hereditary coping mechanism for navigating the Confucian system. Expressed through various cyclical notions—looped celluloid film projection, disembodied readings and the spinning of beads. The work emphasises the everlasting time experienced through these hauntings.

We'll meet in a clearing by the magic mountain
2021, text for exhibition with the same name

Exhibited at The Rietveld Pavilion, Gerrit Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL. Ephemera design by Alex Feraday

The Mirror
2021, duo exhibiion with Diego Diez

Exhibited at Mertens Frames Project Space by Plan B, Amsterdam, NL. Works visible from outside.

It is a cliché, but time flies. It feels like yesterday when we moved here around 4 years ago, when there was almost no point in being outside of the city and we were discussing if things would change in the area, but we had it clear, and we knew it was the best for our future, now our present. After us, many found this area interesting, and many keep moving here, but it is maybe the time to move to that neighborhood that saw us grow and keep building from there. Although things have changed a lot this year we will miss the Sunday pancakes with our friends and their children, the pizzas around the corner, and the amazing opening of the brewery a few minutes away. And when we were lazy, the runs to the shop on the corner to buy some more beers before they would close. Now things will be easier, or that's what we hope but we will never forget the great challenges that brought us all the way here and made us be who we are.

Thanks for everything, friends.
Family brouwn - möller
tel: 06 2007 5386

Descendant (spine x)
2021, clay, beads, 400cm

Exhibited at Open New Window, 3FL 469 Phrasumen Rd. Bowonniwet Phranakon, Bangkok, TH. Curated by expensive to be poor

The work appears to dangle from the ceiling, but at the same time, we are not sure whether it is the object itself that is standing in support of the space.

Jade
2020, graphite on paper, clay, ceramic, glass ball, 37 x 37 x 0.5cm

Sea
2020, graphite on paper, clay, ceramic, glass ball, 44 x 40 x 0.5cm

Room
2020, ceramic, glass ball, 11 x 6.5 x 3.7cm

Dragonfly, peppermint, autumn sky
2020, UV print on aluminum, 30 x 45cm

Exhibited at Speedy Grandma Centennial, Speedy Grandma, Bangkok, TH

Casting a Spell to Alter Reality
2020, single channel, 13:44 mins

Using scenes from Hou Hsiao-Hsien's 'Coming of Age' trilogy, the film essay is a lyrical study of physical and psychological interiors shaped by spellbinding magic-realist stories, weaved together with Virada's family's disparate memories of supernatural visitations. Via the mysterious occurrences passed down through generations through myth-like storytelling, the work retraces the history of personal and collective perceptions by treading carefully between fact and fiction, magic and reality.