Winter Exhibition

December 2022, Gallery of Fine Arts Nachod

I was selected by curator Nongkran Panmongkol alongside 29 outstanding artists from the Czech Republic and abroad.

‘Fishing Buoys’ art installation and photography #takenbylukas

I found old metal fishing buoys back in 2020. I brought these onto land, laced them together and set them in a small pond, and this installation would change shape and colour with the seasons.

Before, I would have dismissed it as trivial. Now I wondered what it meant. It led to my work for the Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition 2022.

‘Fishing Buoys’ art installation and photography by Lukas Kroulik.

Gallery of Fine Arts Nachod, Eastern Bohemia, Czechia.

Winter Exhibition till 12th February 2023.

Karen Hill Tribe Refugees

Golden Triangle, Northern Thailand

Tourism in these desperately poor environments is inevitably controversial.

On the edge of Chiang Mai, we also visited a Karen tribal community of refugees from oppression by the Myanmar military government.

Karen women are well known for their neck ornaments.

Portrait by Lukas Kroulik. (With the consent of the sitter and the community leader.)

But are these a form of mutilation?

Portrait by Lukas Kroulik. (With the consent of the sitter and the community leader.)

And is paying to visit and look at these women akin to visiting a zoo?

Portrait by Lukas Kroulik. (With the consent of the sitter and the community leader.)

Through our interpreter I was lucky enough to be able to explore their own views, and what came across more than anything else was that they wanted to continue being allowed to celebrate their beauty.

Lukas Kroulik discussing the arts and crafts of the Karen tribe people.

Meeting Refugees in Thailand

Northern Thailand

On our return from Bhutan we passed through Thailand and made a stop in the North where we visited two refugee communities near Chiang Mai.

This was in the Golden Triangle area, with refugees from the Chinese revolution, the Vietnam war and most recently from Myanmar.

These communities had been famous for opium cultivation which the Thai government has been able to stamp out. We visited the Queen’s Museum of Opium which featured the horrors of the trade but opium was the cash crop for these people.

The horrors of the opium trade, Museum of Opium, photo by Lukas Kroulik.

---

The Thai government encouraged alternatives. We found one community’s new work inspirational. In a high mountain Acah tribe village, we were hosted by the community leader who is developing a range of sustainable enterprises, some but not all related to ecotourism.

High mountain Acah tribe village, photo by Lukas Kroulik. (With the consent of the father and community leader.)

High mountain Acah tribe village, photo by Lukas Kroulik. (With the consent of the father and community leader.)