Has anyone ever asked you where the wind comes from?
Artist(s)
Tada Hengsapkul
Curator
Earth Songsriwilai
copied
A mixed-media installation exploring the condition of "Spiritual Capitalism" in contemporary Thai society. By using encaustic wax, the work serves as a metaphor for the transformation of religious faith into a market commodity, questioning how Buddhist principles are impacted by modern consumerist logic.
100 Tonson Foundation is delighted to present another significant step in the artistic practice of Tada Hengsapkul with Has anyone ever asked you where the wind comes from?, Tada’s first painting exhibition, which officially introduces his new approach to artmaking through encaustic, an ancient and now relatively rare technique in contemporary art.
For this exhibition, Tada begins with an interest in the capitalism of belief, in which worship is no longer solely a matter of spirit and mind, but is tied with the growth of materialism. Wax thus responds his inquiry as a material suspended between the processes of making a sacred object, becoming a ritual object, becoming a commodity, and becoming an artistic material. It not only evokes the acts of casting, molding, and shaping, but also invites us to dig, scrape, peel, and strip away the surface of matter, moving toward an ancestral body from which emerges the primordial sound of the pious consecrating wind.
Over six months, Tada will transform 100 Tonson Foundation into a contemporary altar, inspired by ancient sacred objects associated with animistic worship. At the same time, it will become a space for paintings that embody certain forms of belief, where the breath of time may be giving them form, or may do blown apart and carried away by the wind.
Has anyone ever asked you where the wind comes from? will be open to public from October 17, 2026 - April 11 2027. Throughout the exhibition period, the program will include encaustic art-making workshops, music events, and special talks. Further details will be announced by 100 Tonson Foundation, please stay tuned.
About the artist
Tada Hengsapkul (b. 1987, Korat) is a Thai multidisciplinary artist. His practice involves extensive research to contextualise current political conditions with historical precedents, while at the same time speculating on optimistic futures. His practice often addresses the juxtaposition between control and dissent, rooted in both collective and personal histories. Sourcing from official archives, informal discourse, and popular media, Tada elaborates on themes of nationalism, democracy, and military control in Thailand as well as other influential regional powers.
Born in Korat, the Isan region of Northeastern Thailand, Tada has witnessed his home being the stage for the Second Indochina War and the aggressive establishment of numerous American military bases during the peak of the Cold War. The influence of war on local communities and their culture and political legacies became a key source of inspiration. Connecting personal history to the geopolitical crisis, such as the coup d’état in 2014, Tada explores the power and aggression that persist from the Cold War era. Embodying these intimate stories, Tada expands outward to collective memories embedded in a region under the auspices of an imperial system, while still navigating a landscape defined by colonial intervention.
Tada was trained in photography at Pohchang Academy of Fine Arts and began his professional practice working primarily with photography and moving images. As his research has developed, he has expanded his material repertoire to include mediums like water-colour and paint, to the (mark-making) tools of global protest culture, such as smoke bombs, fireworks, and gunpowder, and recently he has incorporated interactive kinetic objects in his large-scale installations. Using a range of his media the core of his practice is advocacy of freedom, resistance, and compassion.
His works were featured in exhibitions globally, including Between Breaths, Thailand Pavilion, the 61st Venice Biennale, Venice, 2026; Ash and Alteration, JWD Art Space, Bangkok, 2026; the 25th Silpa Bhirasri’s Creativity Grants exhibition, Art Centre, Silpakorn University, Bangkok, 2026; Watch and Chill: Streaming Art to Your Homes, M+, Hong Kong, in collaboration with the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul; Museum of Contemporary Art and Design, Manila; MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, 2022; Escape Routes, Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok, Thailand, 2020; The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT9), Queensland Art Gallery, Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia, 2018. Tada Hengsapkul lives and works in Bangkok, Thailand.
About the curator
Earth Songsriwilai graduated with a degree in Art History from the Faculty of Archaeology, Silpakorn University. He currently works as a Project Assistant at 100 Tonson Foundation and practices as a freelance curator. His interests lie in exploring various aspects of “the boundaries” and “the possibilities,” as well as visual paradigms and modes of presentation within the exhibition process. He approaches curatorial practice as the nurturing of relationships among knowledge, narratives, contexts, possibilities, meanings, objects, and experiences from the perspectives of both makers and audiences.