Hours
Currently Closed
Admission
Members
FREE
Adults
$22
Seniors
$20
Students
$17
Marvin Touré
,
the blood is the water.
View Exhibition
Catalina Schliebener Muñoz
,
Deep, Deep Woods
View Exhibition
Isla Hansen
,
How to Get to Make Believe
View Exhibition
Andrea Peña
,
States of Transmutation
View Exhibition
Asim Waqif
,
Assume the Risk
View Exhibition
Shohei Katayama
,
As Below, So Above
View Exhibition

After School

Teen Summer Workshop Series
Our Mission

The Mattress Factory is an artist-centered museum, international residency program and renowned producer and presenter of installation art. We say “yes” to artists, offering time and space to dream and realize projects in our hometown, Pittsburgh, PA. We invite audiences from around the world and around the corner to step inside, immerse and connect with the artistic process.

Learn More About Us

Sutee Kunavichayanont

Siamese Breath (Twins)

1999

This play is a reflection on the (im)possibility of accepting diversity and the other. The fragmented body of the neoplasm—the fruit of unstable conditions—overcomes barriers, loves and denies itself and others, wanders around, forgetting its profession. It frequently and with pleasure divides, goes through dangerous palpation, questions the possibility of contact with the experience of the other. Poorly brought up but very successful, it invites us to a trans-species transition.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Fusce at elit quis felis ullamcorper vehicula non in est. Maecenas finibus pharetra justo et faucibus. Nulla eu tortor vel ex volutpat efficitur. Vivamus placerat turpis in aliquet venenatis. Quisque ac lacinia mauris. Nam quis lobortis elit. Vestibulum sagittis nisi sit amet euismod hendrerit. Mauris non sodales odio. Donec efficitur molestie quam, sed lobortis massa vestibulum ut.

Nunc at arcu sodales nisi porta euismod non vel neque. Phasellus at lobortis ante, in suscipit justo. Proin non purus vitae nisi molestie consectetur. Vestibulum volutpat lobortis interdum. Vestibulum pretium ligula lorem, egestas ultricies lectus ultricies ac. Curabitur venenatis vulputate dolor.

In Siamese Breath (Twins), Kunavichayanont explores the interaction of western culture - with it's infusion of international commerce and English language media - on the culture of Thailand, a traditional culture with a smaller scale local commerce, strongly informed by Buddhist beliefs. He observes that at times, the two cultures exist in harmony supporting each other. At other times, the cultures are in conflict. At the Mattress Factory, six pairs of life-sized silicone "Siamese twins," one yellow, one white, are joined at different parts of the body. For Kunavichayanont, these twins symbolize the relationship between the west and Thailand. Visitors participate in the the installation by blowing into the structures to inflate them to full size. Each "twin" is self contained - the air used in one does not pass through to the other. When the visitor stops blowing into the sculpture, it deflates, hanging limply on a steel structure. The even or uneven inflation of the twins by visitors is the experience of his work at that moment.

Artist Statement

For more than one hundred years, one of the most challenging tasks for the people of Siam, or Thailand, has been to balance indigenous values with modern western development. The integration of the old and new is both harmonious and completely conflicted at the same time.

Living with two different values reminds me of the Siamese Twins. In Siam, in the early nineteenth century, there were twins named Chang and Eng who were joined together at the waist. The Scottish trader, Robert Hunter, introduced Chang and Eng to the Western world. When he first saw them, he described them this way: “It was a creature that appeared to have two heads, four arms and four legs.” Dr. Dan Bradley later recorded an addition,  “all of which were moving in perfect harmony.”

In 1826, Hunter brought the twins to America. They were on display in show business as the Siamese Double Boys, which soon became “The Siamese Twins.” They later became naturalized American citizens, married two sisters, had children, and died in North Carolina.

Siamese Breath (Twins) in the Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh, is a new version of the Siamese Twins that is on display to viewers in America at the end of the twentieth century, 173 years after the arrival of Chang and Eng. But this time, they come as inflatable bodies colored yellow and white, representing Asian yellow skin and Western white skin. They are joined together at some parts of the bodies. They are expecting the breath from the visitors to fill their bodies.

Exhibition

Ten Asian Artists in Residence: October 30, 1999 – July 31, 2000

More from this Artist

More from this Exhibition

Victorian Sweeties

Weeds

Untitled

Dark Room

Tales from the Warehouse

D-Gravitizer

The Magic Sword of MMCCDXCVII

10-30-1999

Mind Space

SUPPORT THE MUSEUM

Give artists the time, space and resources to create remarkable works of art that help us see our world in new ways.

linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram