The collaborative project by three visual artists — Vipoo Srivilasa (Thailand), Shin Koyama (Japan) and Pepijn van den Nieuwendijk (The Netherlands) — has been assembled in Bangkok, Thailand under the intriguing heading “Indigo Monster.” The project started when the artists experimented with an artistic game called “the exquisite corpse”. This is a device by which a collection of images is collectively assembled as each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence. One does the head, then pass on to the next to draw the body, then pass on to the next to create the legs. At the end of the game, a complete monster is rendered. As the artists live in very different parts of the globe, the vehicle for drawing game was airmail post!
The artists had chosen monsters as their subject due to the strong traditional and local connotations, as well as the powerful global contemporary resonance with global warming and other planetary worries. And by revitalizing the historical ties that connect Holland with both Japan and Thailand, the artists sought to investigate different ways to trade ideas between the three cultures.
In this sense the ‘Indigo Monsters Project’ is a response to the geopolitical power shift taking place, with the center of international political gravity ebbing from the west to the east. It is also a noteworthy examplar of how artists can address the economic, cultural and environmental monsters to which this shift is giving birth.
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