Fusing sculpture, video, sound and graphic design, the exhibition explores the parallel histories of Thailand and the UK, from popular culture and politics via to nationwide symbolism.
A vacationer memento stand, overflowing with t-shirts, baseball caps, key chains, scarves, toys and umbrellas, occupies the primary gallery. Stacked excessive, hanging and draping, every merchandise is meticulously designed by Tanat, and attracts inspiration from a collection of protest and activist songs pivotal to Thailand’s historical past of resistance. These embody For the Lots, a tune rising from the 1973 well-liked rebellion, that performed a key position in ending Thailand’s army dictatorship. Typically throwaway, kitsch or disposable objects, these objects are envisaged as trojan horses—containers that maintain deeper tales and replicate the methods a nation’s identification may be packaged and exported via iconography.
Put in contained in the stand is a brand new video and sound work that additional explores the connections and convergences between Thailand and the UK. Utilizing TikTok-style viral dance routines, which mix Thai folks traditions with fashionable developments, the work examines how cultural and viral advertising and marketing affect and reshape concepts of indoctrination. The accompanying soundtrack builds upon Tanat’s ongoing analysis into cross-cultural hybrid sounds and the way sound generally is a instrument to regulate, encourage, and energise.
Within the second gallery, a large-scale printed backdrop references conventional Thai Opera scenography, whereas large-scaled promoting lightboxes characteristic performers from the video sporting Tanat’s designed memento merchandise. A big mirror inserts the viewer into the scene and would possibly encourage a round second of promotion. These components mix to spotlight the strain and connections between commercialisation and tradition.
All through historical past many efforts have been made to market Thailand internationally, and to draw a Western viewers. Sceptical of those ongoing makes an attempt to co-opt tradition and historical past, in “Nationwide Opera Complicated”, Tanat presents a hybridised Thailand, one which is likely to be extra consultant of the nation’s various and sophisticated histories and ideologies.
