“While still processing the whirlwind Biennale tour, I thought about rootedness: a sense of connection that can only be harnessed through patience, or even leisure—something that was absent from the previous four days. I thought of the Biennale title, “The Open World,” said to have been inspired by the name of an ancient Buddha statue in an elaborate stupa at Chiang Saen’s Wat Pa Sak monastery. […]“
“With neither chauffeur nor schedule, I ambled under the foliage of colossal trees, took idle Grab rides under a halcyon sky, and sat in reverie with artworks that not only respond to their venues’ multilayered narratives but also reveal the historical, ecological, and sociopolitical undercurrents of Thailand’s northernmost province.”
“The imaginary flow of water, and the more-than-human entities that it carried, pulled me to Chiang Saen, the border town famous for the now-touristic Golden Triangle where Thailand, Myanmar, and Laos share their borders. The nonhuman spirituality embedded in this town hummed quietly within the visual, aural, and narrative cores of the works on display here: […]”
“My last memory of the Thailand Biennale was the sun in a cave, part of Apichatpong’s VR immersion, titled A Conversation with the Sun, 2022, at the Kochasan Conference Hall—a bright orb slowly emerging from the ground and swallowing me whole in its luminosity.”
Read the full article at Artforum.
