Korakrit Arunanondchai

There is a strong similarity between how one recalls a dream, a memory and a film. This overlap is where I form my filmic compositions. Time is the primary subject and material of my work. For me, time is held and experienced through the body, both as an individual and as a collective. I’m a visual artist, filmmaker and storyteller. Most of the medium I work with is time based. I work between documentary and fiction and use video , sound and performance to create works that prioritize emotions over language and linearity.

HOW DOES YOUR SUBMITTED WORK RESPOND TO THE CIRCA 20:25 MANIFESTO?
Unity for Nostalgia—part document of a performance, part proof of concept for a future film—explores prayers as film scripts, culture as a ghost, and cinema as a vessel carrying the past into the present. Filmed on a stage of ash and in a monkey-overtaken cinema, it treats absence, silence, and spectrality as mediums. Using Asian horror as a framework, it follows “The Artist,” who seeks a “root culture” in Thailand but meets a ghost demanding flesh. This ghost embodies the violence within cultural consumption. Art here becomes ritual technology: not shelter, but a haunted portal linking erasure with the desire for renewal.

IF AWARDED THE £30,000 CIRCA PRIZE, WHAT 10-MINUTE WORK WOULD YOU CREATE – AND HOW WOULD IT EMBODY THE SPIRIT OF REFUGIA?
I would use the funds to complete Unity for Nostalgia, a video work I began last year. This project expands on my ongoing exploration of “ghosts” as metaphors for socio-historical relationships obscured within dominant historical narratives. Here, I draw on the language of Asian horror cinema and science-fiction to explore cultural haunting, spiritual longing, and the extractive dynamics embedded in artistic production and national identity.
For the 10-minute edit of Unity for Nostalgia. The work would unfold as a visual ritual that is atmospheric using the monumental scale of the screen to amplify gestures of absence and invocation.

FOLLOW KORAKRIT ARUNANONDCHAI ON INSTAGRAM

Funding for the CIRCA PRIZE is generated entirely by the #CIRCAECONOMY, a circular model that reinvests proceeds from affordable art sold on CIRCA.ART into new public art commissions, charitable causes, art education and prizes. Since launching in 2020, the initiative has raised over £1 Million, placing artists and communities at the centre of an economy that continually reinvests in the future of art and culture.

The CIRCA PRIZE 2025 winners will be revealed LIVE in Piccadilly Circus on Monday 13 October, with a special 30-minute award ceremony starting at 20:00 BST. Don’t miss it!