FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
International Jury Members Named For 2022 PULSE Awards
Awards to recognize new and emerging artists
for works with the theme “Sex, Life, Chaos: Calm”
Bangkok, 1 November, 2022 – PULSE Clinic, Asia’s leading sexual healthcare provider, with clinics across the region, announced today the International Jury that will select the winners for the 2nd annual PULSE Awards, open to entrants from Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. This year’s theme is “Sex, Life, Chaos: Calm”.
The PULSE Awards aim to raise awareness, through art, on the importance of sexual health, remove social stigma towards the LGBTQ+ community, and normalize society’s attitudes towards sex and sexuality. “In 2022 the world has again become more active, more dynamic, and more complicated, and it effects all of us. Hence our theme for the PULSE Awards 2022; Sex Life, Chaos: Calm.” said Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, Founder and CEO of Pulse Social Enterprise. “After chaos like the pandemic, calm returns. If we are in tune with ourselves, nature, and the universe, we can turn chaos to a higher state of mind.”
The jury members fir 2022 are:
Scud (Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung 雲翔)
China-born Hong Kong film producer, screenwriter and film director. Founder of Artwalker, producing acclaimed films such as the Berlinale official selection “Amphetamine” (2009) and “Voyage” (2012);
Myrtille Tibayrenc
Director of the Toot Yung Art Center since 2008, and well known for her unconventional curatorial projects, and more recently for her work as an artist following an acclaimed debut at Serindia Gallery in Bangkok in 2017, and now a featured artist in the Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) 2022;
Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, also known as Dr. Deyn
Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, M.D., known as Dr. Deyn, is the founder and CEO of PULSE, the renowned pan-Asian network of lifestyle clinics and services, and a research physician at Maastricht University, Netherlands, and is himself a recognized artist.
Myrtille Tibayrenc, one of the jury members, said: “I am honored to be asked to be a judge for this year’s PULSE Awards— I believe art is an excellent vector to promote to a larger public underrated issues such as sex related illnesses and gender marginalization. I am very excited to see the creativity such strong themes can emanate.”
“Thailand, and PULSE Social Enterprise, is leading some very important liberations, especially to create conversations to remove the stigma around sex, gender and minority identification. I’m also calling Thailand home, and am truly excited to see how artists respond to this year’s theme”, Scud said.
A Call to Artists was launched in July for participants to submit their works in the following categories by 15 November 2022:
1. Painting – 2D
2. Sculpture – 3D
3. Photography
4. Ceramics
Two prizes will be awarded to the winners for each category as follows:
● First Prize 100,000THB / 3,200USD (or equivalent in local currency)
● Most Promising 50,000THB / 1,600USD (or equivalent in local currency)
Finalists will have their artworks exhibited at PULSE Gallery spaces in Bangkok in the lead-up to World AIDS Day on 1 December, 2022 when the winners will be announced. The selected works will be auctioned for the Singapore-based charity Foundation for Life. Fifty percent of the auction proceeds will be donated to the Foundation For Life to support testing and treatment of individuals and communities. The remaining 50% raised will go to the artists. Additionally, two winners in their respective categories will win the announced prize money.
Dr. Deyn Natthakhet Yaemim, founder and CEO of PULSE clinics, and one of the jury members said: “PULSE Social Enterprise was created with the goal to improve quality of life and move our society forward, as we firmly believe that a healthy society recognizes, supports and nurtures an individual’s potential. We, therefore, invite artists to think about the relationship between sex and life, and express their creativity through the PULSE Awards. Together we can raise awareness on sexual well-being, normalize society’s attitudes towards sex and sexuality, and work to remove the stigma towards the LGBTQ+ community.”
For more information on the PULSE Awards, including the criteria, prizes, and submission guidelines, please visit the Call to artists page.
About PULSE Social Enterprise
PULSE Social Enterprise consists of three main activities for social movement:
PULSE Clinic –
PULSE operates 16 branches of Asia’s leading lifestyle clinic, in 5 countries. With clients from over 130 countries around the world. Established seven years ago, PULSE clinics offer one-stop services for travel medicine, sexual health, preventive, and integrated medicine to everyone, regardless of age, race, sex, gender, religion, or political views. PULSE has been, and continues to be a trailblazer by offering both online and offline services, including in-person counseling, laboratory testing, treatment, and prevention. PULSE currently has clinics in Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and The Philippines.
PULSE Tech & Innovation –
Helping other clinics in digital transformation and working side by side with PULSE Clinics and leading universities on 3 continents to provide for a healthy life for clients and patients worldwide.
PULSE Gallery –
The newest activity from PULSE to connect people through arts, and move our society forward towards the holistic well-being of all mankind.
About Foundation For Life
Foundation For Life (FFL) is a non-commercial charitable organization dedicated to raising awareness of sexual health and promoting and providing health care and education. The Foundation’s focus is to improve the quality of people’s well-being, with the aim of sexual health normalization and reducing the STI/HIV burden. FFL aims to provide the opportunity for more people to know their status faster through the promotion of the benefits of testing, prevention, treatment, and continuous care. FFL focuses on underserviced populations with limited access to information and access to services such as but not limited to overseas workers and MSM.
For media queries and interview, please contact:
Dararat (Jan) Reinroo at dararat.r@pulse-living.com or on +66 81 0 11 2963
Pulse Awards Judge’s Bios
Scud (Danny Cheng Wan-Cheung 雲翔)
Born in China, Scud had a 20 years IT career, founded a publicly listed company, and travelled to 80 countries before settling in Sydney. Realizing that he had fulfilled the dream of others but not his own, he returned to Hong Kong to start Artwalker, producing acclaimed films such as the Berlinale official selection “Amphetamine” (2009) and “Voyage” (2012).
Scud’s films explore somewhat taboo themes within cinema, including same-sex relationships and drug-taking. His film-making style eschews cynicism or gritty realism, and embraces an acceptance of the life choices made by his characters, rather than a search for “solutions”. Scud has cited Pier Paolo Pasolini, Yukio Mishima, Pedro Almodovar and Peter Greenaway as directors who have influenced his work.
Scud was the tribute honoree and the first Q-Hugo Award recipient in the 49th Chicago International Film Festival and received an “Artistic Achievement Award” for his “Edgy, Tender and Bold Filmmaking”. SCUD announced his intended retirement in 2022, after making his 10th and last film “Naked Nations”.
Myrtille Tibayrenc
Director of the Toot Yung Art Center since 2008, Myrtille Tibayrenc has become well known for her unconventional curatorial projects, and more recently for her work as an artist following an acclaimed debut at Serindia Gallery in Bangkok in 2017. Since then, she has regularly exhibited at both unorthodox sites and established venues in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. With the current closure of her art center during the pandemic, she has come to increasingly focus on her painting career.
Myrtille is a French citizen and grew up in Bolivia, the US and France. She graduated from the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Dunkirk and continued her arts training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Marseille, before moving to Thailand in 2006. Her figurative work, inspired as much by observation and photography as by images yielded from the web, is painterly and provocative. She works in large series, creating clusters of paintings resembling ex-voto walls found in churches. Each painting, at times very small, is worked like an icon, on wood or canvas. Composed of a strong central figure with a bare background, her technique and choice of subjects are directly inspired by renaissance masters enhancing both the timelessness and anachronism of her images.
Myrtille is a featured artist in the Bangkok Art Biennale (BAB) 2022, with her exhibition, Iconostasisat, located at the Bangkok Art & Culture Center (BACC).
Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, also known as Dr. Deyn
Dr. Natthakhet Yaemim, M.D., called Dr. Deyn, is the founder and CEO of PULSE, a pan-Asian network of lifestyle clinics and services, and a research physician at Maastricht University, Netherlands. PULSE’s mission is to promote and provide excellence in standards of care and education in HIV and co-infections, sexual wellbeing and to actively engage in the formulation of public health policy, with the aim of eradicating the HIV burden in across the region. Dr. Deyn is responsible for the overall management and operations of PULSE.
Dr. Deyn, a recognized artist himself, has held two exhibitions, Sex and Spirituality in Vienna and KinkyBKK in Bangkok in 2022. Besides recognition for his work in acrylic on paper and canvas and charcoal, Dr Deyn is known for his art curation of art exhibitions at PULSE Galleries. In addition, he leads the marketing team at PULSE Clinic, and its art direction, where the graphics used on the website are recognized in their own right for their evocative and educational style, and for his interior design of the PULSE Clinics and PULSE Galleries.
For Media Inquiries Contact:
Dararat (Jan) Reinroo at dararat.r@pulse-living.com or on +66 81 0 11 2963
Or
TQPR Thailand, Tom Van Blarcom, tom@tqpr.com