Cock Wellness Center
2026
Site specific Installation
Nongpho Hospital, Ratchaburi
Baannorg Biennale #5
In Nongpho, Henry turned this interest toward a local practice built on intense, high-stakes performance and gladiatorial spectacle: cockfighting. An officially regulated sport in Thai legislation, cockfighting in the area around Nongpho runs on immense bets and equally immense investment in the animals themselves, an engagement that blurs the line between inter-species care, love, and exploitation. Henry focused on the supplies surrounding the sport, the herbal traditional medicines and modern performance drugs used to prepare the cocks for the ring. He explores how the almost devotional performativity of training, healing, and doping becomes part of a spectrum of, not unproblematic, relational possibilities. He is interested in what these substances actually do to the animals’ bodies, pain suppression, muscle enhancement, and the psycho-physiological cost hidden beneath the ritual of contending.
For the project venue, Henry creates a fighting cock rehab and wellness center complete with a treadmill for chase training, building leg, wing, and cardio strength and stamina. The speculative facility also offers aroma, sound, and colour therapy for relaxation, along with pedicure, beak, and feather care. Humorously appropriating the language of human wellness and athletic conditioning, the piece applies it to a body bred and drugged for combat, questioning what “care” really means for an animal whose value is inseparable from its role as a wagered competitor. Henry activates the training and wellness stations in the room by personally performing, on a cock’s soft sculpture, the training and care rituals he learnt from the local experts
