Undoing with Jakrawal Nilthamrong

Unreal Forest director Jakrawal Nilthamrong has a new exhibition of a video installation, which opened on Sunday night at Space of Liberty (SOL) in Bangkok.

The place is an art gallery and music studio somewhere in the suburban sprawl of the eastern edge of the city, off Pradit Manuram Road.

The exhibition is called Undoing and it's a collaboration by Jakrawal, Phuttiphong Aroonpheng and Chatchai Chaiyont.

The whole place, inside the gallery space and a tiny, claustrophophic labyrinthine market in the garden outside, was pretty crowded with young Thai hipsters. So I actually didn't experience much of installation.

The video involves an elderly pregnant woman shuffling back and forth in a bedroom that had been set up in the gallery space. The video is projected on the wide back wall, and the same paintings that are on the wall are in the video are on the walls of the gallery. It's a weird feeling.

There's another video installation inside a mosquito-net enclosure, which is a close-up of the woman's face and bosum as she sleeps.

Here' s more about Undoing:

Since the revolution of digital world has arrived it has been so convenient to press on the keyboard to undo wrong actions. It’d be nice if such that command function can be applied to the real life. Undoing is a contemporary art exhibition to question (ourselves) the viewers about how many time can we reverse the effect of wrong actions in the past. The show comprises with new artworks of 3 artists with age of mid 30’s, another page of one’s life when he looks back at the past, tries to understand the present and makes a decision for the future. Each one artist is concerning different subject matter although their works reflected social problem and answering themselves how contemporary art can make the artist understand their own lives and what make them to stand for. The show consists of a video projection by Phuttiphong Aroonpheng whose work dealing with the question of authenticity of the Art and artists, Jakrawal Nilthamrong’s video installation is about the ultimate truth of suffering and Chatchai Chaiyont’s painting is regarding fragmentation of capitalism that reflected a social phenomenon and, as a result, his personal concerns.

Two bands were playing, Little Fox and Desktop Error. Judging from the crowd, it was the band I'd heard of, Desktop Error, playing. They had five guitars, including a guy on 12-string and another shredding on white Stratocaster, plus two violinists and string bass. And a glockenspeil, which is crucial to the "cute" Thai experimental pop sound. Ding, ding, ding. On almost every note. They created quite an enjoyable drone, and sounded like Radiohead. But they also reminded me of Led Zeppelin, unplugged, and I wondered what Jimmy Page might do with a Thai lute or phin, พิณ) if it was given to him.

Undoing runs until August 18 at SOL Space, open Monday to Friday, 11am to 5pm
and Sunday by appointment. Call (089) 770 5022.