ย้อนรอยแผลเป็น 6 ตุลา(‘retracing the scars of 6th Oct.’)

A display of items related to the 6th October 1976 massacre of students at Thammasat University opened at Thammasat’s Museum of Anthropology on 25th April, and runs until 30th August. The exhibition, ย้อนรอยแผลเป็น 6 ตุลา (‘retracing the scars of 6th Oct.’), is a scaled-down version of ก่อนจะถึงรุ่งสาง 6 ตุลา (‘before the dawn of 6th Oct.’), held at Thammasat last year. Both events were organised by the Museum of Popular History.

The current exhibition includes Hangman, a painted silhouette of a hanged student, displayed alongside a list of the names of the massacre victims. It also features the contents of the กล่องฟ้าสาง (‘box of dawn’), a ‘museum in a box’ released in 2021.

El Dueño del Palenque (‘the owner of the arena’)

A Mexican band is under investigation for allegedly glamourising the leader of a drug cartel during a concert at the Telmex auditorium in Zapopan on 29th March. As an introduction to their song El Dueño del Palenque (‘the owner of the arena’), photographs of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Cártel Jalisco Nueva Generación, were projected on a video screen behind the band.

The song is an example of the narcocorrido (‘drug ballad’) genre. Live performance of narcocorrido songs is prohibited in several Mexican states, though the government has not imposed a national ban. The band appeared at the Fiscalía General del Estado de Jalisco — the office of the Jalisco attorney general — on 17th April, and are being investigated for potential violation of article 142 of the state’s penal code.

The Scars of War

The Thai Film Archive in Salaya has programmed a season of war films running from yesterday until the end of this month. The season, The Scars of War (สงครามและบาดแผล), includes two screenings of Nontawat Numbenchapol’s controversial documentary Boundary (ฟ้าต่ำแผ่นดินสูง), on 6th and 25th May.

Boundary documents the conflict between Thailand and Cambodia when the disputed Preah Vihear Temple was exploited for nationalist political gain. The issue was so sensitive that the director couldn’t even reveal his identity while filming at the temple. As he told me in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored: “I could not tell anyone in Cambodia that I’m Thai, because it would be hard to shoot. I had to tell everybody I’m Chinese-American... My name was Thomas in Cambodia.”

Boundary was previously shown at Lido Connect and Warehouse 30 in Bangkok in 2019. The film has been subject to censorship twice: it was cut before its theatrical release in 2013, and a screening in Chonburi was prohibited by the military in 2015. (Thai Cinema Uncensored discusses the censorship history of Boundary in much more detail.)

“The most controversial band in the UK...”

London’s Metropolitan Police are investigating the Irish rap group Kneecap after the band appeared to incite violence and endorse terrorist groups at two of their London concerts. Yesterday, The Guardian described Kneecap as “the most controversial band in the UK”.

On 29th November 2023, during a gig at the Electric Ballroom, band member Mo Chara told the crowd: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” (Chara has not been identified by name in other reports about the controversy.) On 21st November 2024, at the O2 Forum Kentish Town during the band’s final show on their Fine Art Tour, Chara said: “Up Hamas! Up Hezbollah!” (Chara was draped in the Hezbollah flag at the time.)

The Met issued a statement on 1st May after videos of the two concerts were shared online: “Both videos were referred to the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit for assessment by specialist officers, who have determined there are grounds for further investigation into potential offences linked to both videos. The investigation is now being carried out by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command and inquiries remain ongoing at this time.”

I a Pixel, We the People

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s exhibition I a Pixel, We the People (ข้าพเจ้าคือพิกเซล, พวกเราคือประชาชน) is currently on show at Bangkok CityCity Gallery. The ambitious project is a video installation running for a whole day and night, divided into twenty-four one-hour episodes. The video projections are surrounded by large piles of old clothing, hoarded by the artist’s family.

I a Pixel, We the People features excerpts from Chulayarnnon’s previous work, edited to create a new narrative. It also includes footage of the recent student protest movement, filmed by the artist on 20th September 2020 (when a new plaque was installed at Sanam Luang) and 18th October 2020 (when students rallied at Victory Monument).

The golden snail motif has been a key feature of Chulayarnnon’s work over the past few years. I a Pixel, We the People begins with an extract from his short film Birth of Golden Snail (กำเนิดหอยทากทอง), before documenting the processs by which that film was banned from the Thailand Biennale. The first episode of I a Pixel, We the People likens the ban to the golden snail being “aborted while still in his shell”. (This metaphor can be traced back to a 2018 Dateline Bangkok post.)

Photographs from a meeting between Chulayarnnon and the Office of Contemporary Art and Culture, the organisation that banned Birth of Golden Snail, are accompanied by captions describing the OCAC’s criticisms of that film, followed by records of emails and phone calls with OCAC officials and exhibition curators. There is also footage of a secret 1st November 2018 screening of the film in Krabi, on the eve of the Biennale. (Chulayarnnon discussed Birth of Golden Snail, and his other work, in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

At twenty-four hours long, I a Pixel, We the People is a wide-ranging film covering many topics, though the story of the golden snail is a constant thread. In this new version of the snail’s life story, the snail is the son of a propaganda minister in an authoritarian government (the female figure in Chulayarnnon’s segment of Ten Years Thailand).

The snail joins an anti-government protest, represented by Chulayarnnon’s archive footage of red-shirts commemorating the May 2010 massacre. The protesters are suppressed, initially with water cannon (coverage from Nation TV of Siam Square on 16th October 2020), and later by more violent means, illustrated by clips from Chulayarnnon’s documentary ชวนอ่านภาพ 6 ตุลา (‘invitation to read images of 6th Oct.’) and by new footage of dead animals.

I a Pixel, We the People also acts as a recontextualised retrospective of Chulayarnnon’s video works, and a reminder of Thai political and cultural events from the past two decades. Some of this material has not been shown for many years, if at all. Nothing to Say (ไม่มีอะไรจะพูด), for example, was an evening programme of fifty-three silent short films, shown at the Pridi Banomyong Institute on 31st October 2008. Produced by the now-defunct ThaiIndie collective, the Nothing to Say short films have since disappeared from the public record: even Chulayarnnon’s entry, เพลงของคนโง่ (‘song of a fool’), doesn’t appear on his filmography.

The exhibition opened on 26th April, and runs until 21st June. On the first day, the gallery was open for twenty-four hours, and the entire film was shown as a durational installation, with visitors staying overnight to watch all twenty-four episodes. Chulayarnnon’s previous exhibition at Bangkok CityCity, Give Us a Little More Time (ขอเวลาอีกไม่นาน), took place in 2020, and some of his satirical collages from that exhibition are on display again as part of I a Pixel, We the People.

Due to the project’s marathon running time, I a Pixel, We the People has been divided into six seasons, like a long-running TV series, each containing four episodes:

Season 1 — Star Wars
(สงครามอวกาศ)

1. This Is Not a Film (นี่ไม่ใช่ภาพยนตร์)
2. In God We Trust (อาจารย์แม่ช่วยด้วย)
3. Peoplization (และแล้วความเคลื่อนไหวก็ปรกฏ)
4. The Impossible Dream (ความฝันอันสูงสุด)

Season 2 — One Family One Soft Power
(หนึ่งครอบครัวหนึ่งซอฟท์พาวเวอร์)

5. My Mother and Her Portraits (แม่และภาพเหมือนของเธอ)
6. Golden Snail (สังข์ทองลูกแม่)
7. Cyber Scout (ลูกเลือไซเบอร์)
8. My Teacher Is a Genius (ส่องสัตว์สิ้นตาน)

Season 3 — The Star Light of Earth
(แสงดาวแห่งศรัทรา)

9. Comrades (สหาย)
10. Let It End in Our Generation (ให้มันจบที่รุ่นเรา)
11. Water Is Soft Power (พลิงละมุน)
12. Big Cleaning Day (แดนเนรมิต)

Season 4 — The Massacre
(ฤๅเลือดไหร่มันไร้ค่า)

13. I Am Vaccinated (คนเช่นนี้เป็นตนหนักแผ่นดิน)
14. Next Life in the Afternoon (ตนยังคงยืนเด่นโดยท้าทาย)
15. Forced Disappearance (บึงดินบุคคลให้สูญหาย)
16. The Eternity of Golden Snail (กำเนิดใหม่หอยทากทอง)

Season 5 — I a Pixel
(ข้าพเจ้าถือพิกเซล)

17. Voluntary Artist: Nopphon (ศิลปินจิตอาสา: นพพร)
18. Voluntary Artist: Kirati (ศิลปินจิตอาสา: กีรติ)
19. Voluntary Artist: Angsumalin (ศิลปินจิตอาสา: อังศุมาลิน)
20. Voluntary Artist: Red Eagle Sangmorakot (ศิลปินจิตอาสา: อินทรีแดง แสงมรกต)

Season 6 — The Internationale Shall Certainly Be Realised
(แองเตอร์นาซิอองนาล จะต้องปรากฎเป็นจริง)

21. Artist Is Not National’s Property [sic] (ศิลปินไม่ใช่สมนิติของชาติ)
22. Long Live Microcinema (ภาพยนตร์ยิงให้เกิดปัญญา)
23. How to Explain “Monument of the Fourth International” to a Dead Snail (เรารักภูมิพลิงวัฒนธรรม ละมุนละม่อมนุ่มนิ่ม)
24. House of Tomorrow (บ้านของพรุ่งนี้)

“Publishers are not liable for honest mistakes...”

A jury has found that The New York Times did not defame Sarah Palin when it published an editorial on 14th June 2017. Palin had sued the newspaper for libel over a sentence in the editorial falsely implying that her campaign had encouraged the 2011 shooting of fellow politician Gabby Giffords: “Before the shooting, Sarah Palin’s political action committee circulated a map of targeted electoral districts that put Ms. Giffords and 19 other Democrats under stylized cross hairs.”

The newspaper had swiftly apologised for the editorial — “We got an important fact wrong, incorrectly linking political incitement and the 2011 shooting of Giffords” — and inserted a clarification into the online version of the article the day after its original publication: “no connection to the shooting was ever established.” The initial libel case ended on 15th February 2022, when a jury concluded that the editorial was not defamatory.

Palin appealed against that verdict, and she was granted a retrial on 28th August last year. Yesterday, the week-long retrial ended with a different jury reaching the same conclusion, that the newspaper did not intentionally defame Palin. After yesterday’s verdict, New York Times spokesperson Danielle Rhoades Ha said: “The decision reaffirms an important tenet of American law: publishers are not liable for honest mistakes.”

Stone: Ancient Craft to Modern Mastery

Stone: Ancient Craft to Modern Mastery, by Richard Rhodes, is one of the only publications in English to provide a general history of stone as an architectural material. The book includes an extensive glossary, endnotes, and bibliography, and it has an impressive cover that reproduces the surface texture of stone. In his introduction, Rhodes emphasises the cultural significance of stone buildings: “The ruins of stone and masonry architecture testify to war and destruction, to the rise and fall of cities and civilizations.”

Rhodes is apparently the last surviving apprentice of a medieval Italian guild of stonemasons. He stresses that this organisation is not affiliated with “the secret-handshake Masons”, though he describes it in equally conspiratorial terms. Several chapters of the book are devoted to the guild’s supposedly “Sacred Rules” of stonemasonry, and Rhodes claims that he is “sharing these secrets for the first time.” (This all feels a bit too much like Dan Brown to me.)

Stone is one of several recent books on architectural materials. Others include Concrete, Brick, Stone, and Wood (a series by William Hall); Glass in Architecture (by Michael Wigginton); Brick (by James W.P. Campbell); Architecture in Wood (by Will Pryce); Arish (by Sandra Piesik); Corrugated Iron (by Simon Holloway and Adam Mornement); and The Art of Earth Architecture (by Jean Dethier).

Spray Nation: 1980s NYC Graffiti Photographs

Martha Cooper collaborated with fellow photographer Henry Chalfant on Subway Art, a record of New York subway graffiti that became known as the graffiti bible. Almost forty years later, in 2022, a more substantial selection of Cooper’s photography was published in Spray Nation: 1980s NYC Graffiti Photographs. The book also includes essays on Cooper’s seminal influence on graffiti history, describing her as “the grand dame of street art photography”.

The very first book on street art was The Faith Of Graffiti, from 1974. Chalfant co-wrote Spraycan Art with James Prigoff. Trespass covers the history of graffiti. There are also two books on the Bangkok graffiti scene: Bangkok Street Art and Bangkok Street Art and Graffiti (สตรีทอาร์ตกับกราฟฟิตีในกรุงเทพฯ).

The Shattered Worlds: Micro Narratives from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Great Steppe

The group exhibition The Shattered Worlds: Micro Narratives from the Ho Chi Minh Trail to the Great Steppe (โลกร้าว เรื่องเล่าขนาดย่อมจากเส้นทางโฮจิมินห์ถึงทุ่งหญ้าสเต็ปป์) opened on 3rd April, and runs until 6th July. The exhibition is split between three venues, though the majority of the pieces are on show at Bangkok Art and Culture Centre.

Chulayarnnon Siriphol’s video triptych No More Hero in His Story, part of his Red Eagle Sangmorakot (อินทรีแดง แสงมรกตะ) installation, features the return of his saffron-robed monk wearing an incongruous motorcycle helmet. The character has previously appeared in Chulayarnnon’s short film Monk and Motorcycle Taxi Rider, and in his segment of the portmanteau film Ten Years Thailand. (Chulayarnnon discussed his depiction of monks in an interview for Thai Cinema Uncensored.)

For his installation The Tower of Bubbles, Thasnai Sethaseree created collages of published texts and photographs related to political violence, which he then painted over, almost — but not quite — obscuring them from view. He has used this technique before, covering newspaper pages with brightly coloured paint in works shown at the Dismantle (ปลด) and Cold War exhibitions. A large slogan painted onto the BACC’s wall, “WHAT YOU DON’T SEE WILL HURT YOU”, makes the point that the historical atrocities overpainted by Thasnai may be hidden from sight, but they still have the potential to reoccur.

Red’s Objects Dialogue

Almost exactly fifteen years ago, on 10th April 2010, the Thai military opened fire on pro-democracy red-shirt protesters in Bangkok. The Museum of Popular History is commemorating the anniversary of the crackdown with an exhibition of red-shirt memorabilia, which opened on 29th March at the Kinjai Contemporary gallery in Bangkok.

The exhibition, Red’s Objects Dialogue (เสื้อตัวนี้สีแดง), runs until 10th April, the date on which the army launched their assault. Red’s Objects Dialogue has been conceived as an interactive exhibition, with visitors encouraged to share any memories of the protests prompted by the items on display (including an impressive collection of hand-clappers, t-shirts, and VCDs).

Red’s Objects Dialogue includes several notorious items that were banned by previous governments: calendars issued in 2016 and 2019 by Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra, flip-flops featuring images of Abhisit Vejajjiva and Suthep Thaugsuban, and a Pheu Thai promotional water bowl. The bowl and calendars were previously displayed at the Never Again (หยุด) exhibition in 2019. One of the most intriguing exhibits is a transistor radio (a generic design, sold in Thailand as a Tanin TF-268) which has been rebranded a “RED RADIO”.

The tragic events of 10th April 2010 have also been commemorated in several previous exhibitions: Khonkaen Manifesto (ขอนแก่น แมนิเฟสโต้) and Amnesia in 2019, Future Tense in 2022, and 10 April and Beyond last year. They are also referenced in Pisitakun Kuantalaeng’s album Kongkraphan, Pen-ek Ratanaruang’s short film Two Little Soldiers (สาวสะเมิน), and in the poetry collection ลุกไหม้สิ! ซิการ์ (‘burning cigar!’).

A book commemorating the victims of the massacre, วีรชน 10 เมษา (‘heroes of 10th April’) by Ida Aroonwong and Warisa Kittikhunseree, was published in 2011. There are also plans to publish a book based on visitors’ responses to the artefacts on show at Red’s Objects Dialogue. Like the Museum of Popular History, the National Library of Australia also has an archive of red-shirt ephemera.