Nipan Oranniwesna, Then, one morning, they were found dead and hanged, 2020, ink-jet print on floor, wooden text. Installation view. Photo: Surachet Wonghun. “On the far side of the room, opposite the teak boxes, he’d sprinkled azure pigment onto the floor in abstract forms and commingled them with two sentences in teakwood: THEN, ONE MORNING, […]
As viewers zoomed in, they discovered that these images were not in fact photographic prints, but were formed by hundreds of pixel-like paper disks lightly affixed to the heads of nails emerging from wood panels. The moment these works were hit by the slightest gust of air, the disks would flutter, disintegrating the image’s pristine legibility. Through these kinetic photographs, Hengsapkul suggests that the pillars of Thai politics are but a flimsy phantasm, while evoking the potential power of the Thai people. If they mobilize together, they can disrupt and potentially dissolve hegemonic structures.
In the smaller of the two galleries, Anwar installed When you pray for black gold, you must deal with the burning smoke too (all works cited, 2023), a cream-colored prayer rug embroidered with black Kurdish traditional patterns, spread out on a low pedestal and aligned toward Mecca. Over its coarse surface is printed a map that allocates territories to different Middle Eastern ethnic groups, including the Kurds. However, this prayer for sovereignty was unanswered, as Turkey pushed for the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne that effectively turned Kurdistan into terra nullius and scattered its people as minorities in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey.