Michael Shaowanasai

Michael Shaowanasai, (ไมเคิล เชาวนาศัย, born in 1964 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), is a Thai-American artist and actor who lives in Bangkok. His works includes performance art, photography, video, film and installations. He graduated from School of Law at Chulalongkorn University in 1985, earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree at San Francisco Art Institute in 1994 and a Master of Fine Arts from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1996. He is a founding member of Project 304, a Bangkok-based contemporary art group. His solo shows include MS@OAS, a photography installation at Open Art Space in Bangkok; Thailand, as well as shows at the Fujikawa Gallery in Osaka, Japan, the 4A gallery in Sydney, Australia and Ottawa Art Gallery, Canada. Among his more provocative works are Welcome to My Land ... Come and Taste the Paradise, an installation and performance by Project 304 in Bangkok and Fresh Young Boys' Semen for Sale, a performance on Patpong in Bangkok. Among his film and video works is the 2003 feature film, The Adventure of Iron Pussy, which he co-directed with Apichatpong Weerasethakul. A spoof of Thai movie musicals and melodramas of the 1960s and '70s (especially those of Petchara Chaowarat, Michael portrayed the title character, a transvestite Thai secret agent whose alter ego is a gay male 7-Eleven clerk. The film was screened at several festivals, including the Tokyo International Film Festival, the Berlin Film Festival, the Melbourne International Film Festival, as well as a limited commercial run in a Bangkok cinema and a DVD release in Thailand. Shaowanasai, who is openly gay, had a featured role in the 2006 romantic-comedy, Metrosexual and portrays a soccer referee in Lucky Loser. On 2008, Shaowanasai curated the exhibition 'Lifeboat #2551' as part of the Sydney Biennale Projects, in Gallery 4A, also known as the Asia-Australia Arts Centre. The exhibition screened video and film works by artists Wit Pimkanchanapong, Sakarin Krue-on, Tintin Cooper, [Momokomotion], Manit Sriwanichpoom and Michael Shaowanasai. On 2012, Shaowanasai starred a role in a Philippine-Thai Film entitled Suddenly It's Magic produced by Star Cinema.