2023
Video Installation, Print
Turbine Tropics, 2023
Black collapsible crates, two-channel video, (colour and sound), 11min

Render_TurbineTropics_01,2023
Render_TurbineTropics_02, 2023
Direct UV print on silver dibond, 800mm x 800mm

Turbine Tropics explores the impact of extractive capitalism and Southeast Asian plantation narratives. It investigates plantation corporatism's invisibility to the public, utilising monoculture industries as a lens for geopolitical dynamics. Integrating Homi K. Bhabha's liminality theory, Dia views rubber plantations as spaces of continuous transformation, caught between the natural and artificial. The work, through symbolic spirals and helical forms, critiques colonial extractivism and its lasting effects, embodying the tension between global forces and local ecologies.

Read full text here

Graphic Design: Studio Darius Ou
Image Credits: Jonathan Tan
Frieze Seoul, Focus Asia
Seoul, South Korea

Presented by Yeo Workshop