A Minor History comprises a two-part exhibition in Apichatpong’s ongoing cinematic portrayal of Isan - Thailand’s northeastern region. The first installment is a three-channel video installation resulting from the artist’s journey along the Mekong River during Thailand’s recent pandemic lockdowns. He accumulated interviews and photographs that reflect the country’s shifting political climate.

The piece focuses on two encounters, beginning with a Mukdahan local who recovered the wrapped bodies of political activists found in the river and followed by the discovery of an old cinema theatre in Kalasin province. The skeletal remains of the cinema, infested with pigeons, are juxtaposed with images of the nocturnal flow of the Mekong. Behind lurks a Morlam (lsan folk performance) theater backdrop that depicts an empty palace. Majestic colors are dimmed in darkness and at times illuminated by the flickering film.

For the work’s audio component, Apichatpong collaborates with Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, his longtime sound designer, and for the first time with a young Isan poet, Mek Krung Fah (the half-cloudy sky). The poet composes a fictional story and impersonates a man and his lover as they stroll along the riverbank. The narration mimics an old cinema and radio drama dubbing style from a bygone era.

With its hybrid form of storytelling, the installation hovers in the realms of reality and dreams. It reflects on the decay of memories and representations, on the disintegration of social narrative and truth. To Apichatpong, these lights from the road are a memorial to childhood innocence and an awakening to the unspeakable violence in Thai society. The show is a tribute to the political dissidents whose forced disappearance lingers like a myth.

 

A Minor History | ประวัติศาสตร์กระจ้อยร่อย

Video installation by Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Sound Designer: Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr

Narrator (voice-dubbing): Mek Krung Fah

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Exhibition Statement: Manuporn Luengaram, Curator

History is an endless conversation between the past and the present. But history as we know it is by and large mainstream history. It is made up of official national narratives about the ruling classes and events that are told to indoctrinate us with a certain set of beliefs and ideas. In A Minor History, Apichatpong Weerasethakul records a story of a distinct period in Isan - Thailand’s northeastern region – an area long socially and politically oppressed. It is the story and memory of common people, minor characters, and dissidents. It also tells of local legends and beliefs in the supernatural.

The work is the result of Apichatpong’s return to Isan during the recent pandemic lockdowns. He begins his journey in Khon Kaen where he grew up, then goes to Nong Khai, Kalasin, Nakhon Phanom, Sakon Nakhon, Mukdahan, finally reaching Ubon Ratchathani. He accumulates interviews, photographs, and various local perspectives on politics. He encounters an independent younger generation with completely different political ideas and beliefs from the previous generation. These young people are searching for their own grounds, questioning the meaning of self, happiness, and freedom. In his journey along the Mekong River, Apichatpong observes how the familiar river has been transformed as a result of the dams built in China. The Mekong River, the main artery between Thailand and Laos, is at once the victim of and witness to many layers of truth, evidenced in relics that have accumulated over time, now being excavated and examined.

The first part of the exhibition presents a three-channel video installation, inspired by Apichatpong’s encounter with a man from Mukdahan who is a member of a team that recovers corpses found floating in the Mekong River. Apichatpong also discovers an old movie theatre in Kalasin that evokes memories of the cinema of his youth in Khon Kaen that is no longer there. This source of light and stories, of Thai films’ narrative traditions and propaganda in the nation-building era that shaped individuals and society, is now nothing more than skeletal remains, infested with hundreds of pigeons. This image of dilapidation is juxtaposed with the nocturnal flow of the Mekong River. Behind lurks a Morlam (Isan folk performance) theatre backdrop that depicts an empty palace. The majestic colors are eclipsed by darkness and illuminated, at times, by the flickering films.

For the sound component, Apichatpong collaborates with Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, who has been responsible for the sound design and mixing of all of his previous works. The echoes from the nooks and crannies of the old cinema. The flapping of the pigeon wings. The Bang! originally exploding from inside Apichatpong’s head. The bangs are reverberations of his Fever Room project and the film Memoria. They are the bangs that awaken memories from a long slumber. For this piece, Apichatpong works, for the first time, with young Isan poet Mek Krung Fah (the half-cloudy sky), who was born and raised on the banks of the Chi River. The poet composes and narrates his story, taking on the roles of a man and his lover as they stroll along the Mekong riverbank. His narration mimics the style used in the dubbing of old films and radio dramas from a bygone era.

History may be fiction. It may be made-up stories with evidence still to be uncovered. In this work, fiction and narratives about corpses that regularly float up to the river’s surface clash with mystical beliefs about the Naga, deeply rooted in the way of life and the spirit of local people on both sides of the Mekong River. The death of the Naga. The murders. The disappearance of political activists silenced for expressing their opinions lingers like a myth. Their unforgettable stories are waiting to be disclosed, the truth being brought out into the light.

This work combines various forms of storytelling familiar to Apichatpong from his childhood:  movies, dubbing and voice acting, radio dramas, and Morlam performances. The hybrid form of storytelling hovers in the realms of reality and dreams, reflecting the decay of memories and representations. For Apichatpong, this work is to record the remnants of memories. It is a farewell to and mourning for childhood innocence and an awakening to the unspeakable violence in Thai society.

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A Minor History PART 2: Beautiful Things 

In Beautiful Things exhibition, Apichatpong uses text to tell non-linear stories across space and time. At the forefront of the main exhibition space, texts placed over the photographic image function like the opening titles of a double bill: Mekong Murder Mystery VS Dreams and Delusions, whilst a vertical video projection projects scrolling texts alternating with white spheres, slowly moving up from bottom to top. The text comprises a diverse range of stories from flakes of memories, thoughts, and knowledge, such as Apichatpong’s nature observation during evening trekking in Mae Rim Forest; the ways Khrua in Khong, a celebrated Siamese painter of the 19th century, utilised perspective system to create a realistic impression in his paintings for the first time; and a blind masseur who converted his arm tattoo from a Swastika to a dragon, like a petite Naga incarnate. The use of text on a dark background gives an impression of someone trying to fall asleep from middle-of-the-night awakening to a loud bang only to have random and refracted thoughts punched into their head. For Apichatpong, who tries to build as much sleep — and thus dream — time, the bed becomes a vehicle for entering a dreamscape realm. 

 

Furthermore, also included in Beautiful Things as an intervention to share their views and interact with Apichatpong’s work are artworks by two Chiang Mai-based young artists: Methagod and Natanon Senjit. In this exhibition, Methagod’s sculpture Thep Nelumbo Nucifera (Sacred Lotus Deity) refers to the meaning behind the Sacred Lotus (Nelumbo Nucifera) that emerges from underground rhizomes and can remain viable for a hundred years; This fascinating plant can go dormant, germinate from mud, and give rise to new offspring, hence the artwork being symbolic of immortality. The sculpture reminds us of the perpetual resurrection of Thailand’s youth movements despite being time and again suppressed. Meanwhile, at the back end of the exhibition space, the Morlam theatre backdrop depicting an empty palace is overlaid with Natanon’s painting Break Out of the Loop of National Conflict into Peaceful Nature. Through this work, the young artist emphasises the importance of people-power movements continuing their resistance, yet he nevertheless expresses his hope and desire to live in peace and harmony even in the midst of the country’s political polarisation and predicament. 

Beautiful Things offers us a window into Apichapong’s points of view on the world around him. The work gives a glimpse into his meditative musings on beauty, reality, knowledge, progress, and revolution, as he is pondering on the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti, who prefers looking at nature to any picture in any museum. Observing nature with sensitivity, seeing the tree as it is, is prerequisite for beautiful things to reveal themselves to us. For Apichatpong, beauty is likened to walking through the forest, being aware of other companions, and being in the presence of each and every living thing, witnessing their myriad of expressions throughout their natural cycle. The awakening to a rumbling sound and the awareness of different views, struggles, desires to continue, as well as even of simply being in the present, are truly beautiful things.