Hua Hin International School’s first IB Diploma Visual Arts exhibition presented three distinct bodies of work shaped by the pandemic, political history and questions of personal identity.
The exhibition featured work by students Harry, Lieve and Anupat, all members of the school’s first graduating IB class in 2022. Each student selected and organised a personal group of works intended to demonstrate technical development and a considered use of materials, ideas and visual language.
Three approaches to contemporary experience
Lieve examined identity, paranoia and escapism, themes closely connected to life during the Covid-19 pandemic. Her work drew inspiration from Andy Warhol while using visual art to consider how isolation and uncertainty affected the way individuals understood themselves.
Harry developed a body of work around military history and conflict. His sources included the Death Railway in Kanchanaburi, the Karabakh movement and the Armenian unification movement of 1988. These references allowed him to connect historical events with a sustained visual theme.
Anupat focused on the pressures surrounding self-image. In one project, he photographed himself immediately after waking each morning for a month. The repeated action turned an ordinary routine into a study of appearance, vulnerability and the gap between private experience and constructed identity.
A first milestone for the school
The works were produced in the school’s art studios with support from teaching staff. The exhibition marked the culmination of the students’ IB Visual Arts studies and gave them responsibility for selecting, presenting and explaining their own practice.
All three students had received offers from art universities in Europe by the time of the exhibition. Their presentations showed how a school exhibition could move beyond technical assessment and become a record of young artists engaging with social, historical and psychological subjects through individual visual strategies.