Japanese artist Hajime Sorayama may already have gained a sizeable cult following home and abroad, but his recent collaboration with Kim Jones, Dior’s men’s line designer, has launched him into the stratosphere of fashion and lifestyle. No stranger to Bangkok where he had a solo exhibition almost two years ago, Sorayama has now returned to the city for a joint artistic endeavour with Tokyo-based flower artist extraordinaire Azuma Makoto. The showcase, entitled Sorayama Space Park by AMKK and in celebration of the mall’s fifth anniversary, is the very first collaboration between the two artists, and is held at Central Embassy, an upscale mall and hotel complex in the heart of the Thai capital. The show is anchored by Sorayama’s giant aluminium T-rex dinosaur (11 x 3,74 metres) which has been erected on the mall’s front courtyard, and it links to the artist’s legacy of paintings he created since the early 1980s.
The moon surface-like pedestal of the life-size statue is created by AMKK, Makoto’s very own design practice, and inside the shopping centre, a number of smaller showcases can be seen featuring dinosaurs set in a variety of intricately designed landscapes.. The ‘space park’ element in the show’s title aims to signal its unique concept of pairing dinosaurs with off-beat settings to create an unusual experience for viewers. Obviously, the exhibition comes with a slew of specially created and limited edition merchandise, including drawings, prints, Sofubi dinosaur figurines, T-shirts, hats, bags, and many other items, in addition to an AMKK pop-up flower shop. The merchandise is readily available at the Siwilai store on the fifth floor (on through Nov 17).
Central Embassy
1031 Thanon Ploenchit, Ground Floor (Pathumwan)
Bangkok 10330
Daily 10-10
Publishers Note
Just to be clear – superfuture® is a design blog and not a political commentator. No surprise there. The scope of our content has always been global and borderless, however that can often mean covering projects in countries where we will not agree with the politics or actions of those countries. In a world that’s as screwed up as ever right now, the focus of our support is to those designers, architects and other creatives who aim to make the world a more liveable one – as opposed to people that try their hardest to destroy it. So if a project hits our desk and we like it based on its design credentials, we may choose to publish regardless of its location or creators nationality. superfuture® has always been inclusive and hopes for all current wars, aggression, violence, hate and extremism to end.
