Olya Sukonrat is an independent writer, curator, and producer from Bangkok, Thailand.
She graduated cum laude from Columbia University with a BA in English Literature and previously studied at Carnegie Mellon University’s College of Fine Arts.
As a writer, Olya primarily works with fragments (written, visual, cinematic, and otherwise) to circle around the alphabetic intimacy of absence. Though Olya predominantly writes lyric essays, she often moves across literary forms, experimenting with nonlinear narratives and poetic conventions according to each piece. She was named Matichon’s breakout writer at Thailand’s 48th National Book Fair and recently received Columbia University’s Arthur E. Ford Poetry Prize and Karen Osney Brownstein Writing Award.
As an arts professional, Olya’s curatorial interests center on decolonial methods of imagining “time” and/or memory. She has worked on major projects and exhibitions in Asia (Bangkok Kunsthalle, Tzu Studio Singapore, Khao Yai Art Forest), Europe (Bozar Brussels, Casa Malaparte, St. Moritz Art Film Festival), and North America (Gagosian Gallery, Giorno Poetry Systems, Gladstone Gallery, Walt Disney Company). Previously, she also provided editorial assistance to PEN America’s Freedom to Write Center and Sec. Hillary Rodham Clinton.
Olya is currently completing an artist residency in Nara, Japan, as a MacArthur International Research Fellow. She is editing a series of essays for publication and is working on her first monograph on the textual/bodily corpi.
Portrait by Owen Conway, courtesy of Gagosian Gallery.