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elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ is a collaborative research-based group consisting of artists, Kengchakaj Kengkarnka–เก่งฉกาจ (https://kengchakaj.info/) and Nitcha Tothong(fame)–ณิชชา(เฟม) (https://nitcha.info/)that examines, decoded, explore, and define decolonized possibilities by creating, using code, algorithm, multimedia, and technology.
elekhlekha has performed in small communities, larger institutional spaces, and music festivals, including Barbican Centre(UK); Smithsonian Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden(US); Wonderfruit Festival (Thailand); Int-Act Festival 2022(Thailand); Wonderville NYC(as a part of LiveCode.NYC); Flux Factory(NY); Jamaica Center for the Arts & Learning(NY); The Jazz Gallery(NY); COMMON Festival(currents.fm); Homeward Bound(The Weekly Weekly, NY).
In 2022, they were awarded The Lumen Prize Gold Award—the first Gold Award winner to come out of the Global Majority category. In addition, the artists have received grants and development funds from a City Artist Corps Grant, Queens Council on the Arts, and Babycastles for their debut project, Jitr จิตร.
Tothong holds an MFA from Parsons School of Design(The New School), and Kengkarnka holds an MM from the Manhattan School of Music. They’re currently based in Occupied Lenapehoking(Brooklyn, NYC), the unceded lands of the Lenni-Lenape and home to many Indigenous peoples past, present, and future.
Photography by Geoff Robertson.
Contact us: [email protected]
How to pronounce elekhlekha:
elekhlekha (ele _ khe _ kha ).m4a
elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ is a collaborative research-based group consisting of immigrant Bangkok-born, Brooklyn-based artists, Kengchakaj–เก่งฉกาจ and Nitcha–ณิชชา. We delve into subversive storytelling by exploring non-hegemonic sounds and visual archives, historical research–decoding, and unlearning biases. Our works span performing documents, multimedia, and technology centers to interrogate, experiment, explore, and define decolonized possibilities.
elekhlekha อีเหละเขละขละ is a Thai word that means chaos, dispersedness, entropy, and non-direction to break free our practices from being labeled through a Western lens.
Our works aim to investigate and unfold layers of Southeast Asia's political complexity through the continuity of oral & aural history and sound cultures' lineage. The juxtaposition of ancestors' knowledge and new aesthetics as algorithmic compositions reconfigured to a new context builds a new relationship, breaks the social expectation that sound cultures must be traditional, and carries the sounds to evolve and expand in the new context of algorithmic automation, generative, and finds possibilities derailing from consciousness.
Inspired by our struggle of unlearning and relearning–eliminating bias rendered by imperialism, classism, nationalism, patriarchy, and political layers of our history to reclaim agency, the long-lost innovation, reimagine the new process and mode of expression. We seek out non-binary, non-standard, and unconventional subjectivities –– the broad spectrum that should have always been in the spotlight. Many sound cultures have been constrained, and that suppression makes it hard for minority communities to resound and be heard. Our approach is to look into the past and present, honor non-dominant and suppressed histories, and experiment and search for an alternative future. Decolonization requires hacking the system, which is not made for us, but using its tools to tell our story with our own ideas to break through and liberate ourselves from that system.
full dossiers available upon request
Nitcha Tothong (Fame) Interdisciplinary artist, designer, and researcher she/they b.1987 www - nitcha.info @ - nitcha_dot_fame_at_gmail_dot_com
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ณิชชา โตทอง (เฟม) ศิลปิน, นักออกแบบ
Kengchakaj (Keng) Improviser, pianist, and electronics experimentalist he/him b.1989 www - kengchalkaj.info @ - hi_at_kengchakaj_dot_info
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เก่งฉกาจ (เก่ง) นักด้นสด, นักเปียโน, และ นักทดลองอิเล็กโทรนิคส์