Gridthaya Gaweewong Receives CCS Bard’s Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence
149Dec. 19, 2024
The Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (CCS Bard), in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York, has named Gridthiya Gaweewongthe winner of the 2025Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. The honor, presented annually since 1998, recognizes those who have brought “innovative thinking, bold vision, and dedicated service to the field of exhibition-making” and is attended by a $25,000 prize.
Gaweewong is the artistic director of the Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok; a guest curator at the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai; and an independent curator. In 2023, with Rirkrit Tiravanija, she was co–artistic director of the Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai. She is a cofounder, alongside Montien Boonma, Kamol Phaosavasdi, and Apichatpong Weerasethakul, of the Bangkok-based alternative art space Project 304, which was in operation from 1996 to 2003. Prior to launching her curatorial career, Gaweewong worked as an English teacher and librarian in a refugee camp in Phanat Nikhom, Thailand, before earning a master’s in administrations and policy from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
“Gridthiya’s curatorial approach, which subverts institutional narratives in lieu of artist-led and personal perspectives, embodies the innovative contributions to the curatorial field CCS Bard aims to recognize with this award,” said CCS Bard executive director Tom Eccles in a statement.
Alongside the Audrey Irmas Award, CCS Bard additionally announced Amber Esseiva, a 2015 graduate of the curatorial program, as the winner of the CCS Bard Alumni Award. Accompanied by a $10,000 prize, the honor was established in 2023 to recognize “outstanding graduates who demonstrate sustained innovation and engagement with exhibition-making, public education, and research in the field of curation.” Esseiva is acting senior curator at the Institute for Contemporary Art at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she arrived after a stint as curator at large for the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
Gaweewong and Esseiva will receive their awards at CCS Bard’s spring 2025 gala celebration and dinner on April 7, 2025, to be held in New York City at The Lighthouse at Pier 61.