WHAT YOU DON’T SEE WILL HURT YOU

CURRENT EXHIBITION AT GALLERY VER BY THASNAI SETHASEREE EXPLORES HOW NOTIONS OF “SPECTACLE AND MAGICAL REALISM REINFORCE THE PATRIMONIAL STRUCTURE AND THE STATUS QUO OF POWER RELATIONS IN THAI CULTURE AND ITS POLITICS.”

Recent exhibition “What You Don’t See Will Hurt You” by Thasnai Sethaseree at Gallery VER in Bangkok includes a series of large-scale collage works created through the layering upon layering of cut paper in a process akin to decorative traditions native to the Lanna culture of northern Thailand. Concealed far beneath those color-laden and overlapping layers lie printed reproductions of archival photographs depicting images of political violence such as the 1976 massacre of student protestors at Thammasat University and images depicting the nation’s many military coups d’etat. The visual content above and below push and pull against each other in a manner not dissimilar to that of the two like poles of a magnet, creating a sense of energy that while repelling also draws upon the other as they both conceal and reveal one another.

The ways in which the work propels the viewer to shift between what is seen and unseen is furthermore not a far step from Sethaseree’s works of previous years, such as The Structure of Fear: Trans-structurity (2013),’ that moved back and forth between forms of the real and unreal, existing and non-existing and it’s this act of movement that has in many ways become Sethaseree’s medium. It can be felt in the forms of his imagery and objects as it hovers between foreground and background, in the work’s content as an interdependence is brought about between what is revealed and that which remains concealed and, perhaps most significantly, in the viewer’s own conception – as observation leads toward awareness, and “seeing” toward insight.

 

Could you please introduce your recent exhibition, ‘What You Don’t See Will Hurt You’?

Thasnai Sethaseree: This new body of works is intended to investigate ideas of political spectacle and also ideas about Thai historiography. As those mysterious ideas of history are floating above people’s daily lives, invisibly and yet closely, they have become the destined driven behind the social and its politics. In Thailand for example, behind the curtain of political crisis, including the recent coup d tat, there are networks and conflicts of interest regarding economics, which are pretty much associated with ideas of class culture and the political power of the ruling class. The monopolized  commodity  market has been integrated into this political discourse where citizens have fewer choices in many dimensions of living.

 

I understand that some of the techniques you use reference Lanna craft practices. Is this something that you wanted to incorporate as an element of content or it is simply the process that you found most fitting?

TS: What happens in this series of works is that I still continue using the technique of traditional paper cutting. What is cut and put onto the multiple layers of the surface are archival images of political violence, architectures of modernization, pages of vivid paper, newspapers, the recent Thai Constitution, and Prophetic Lament for Sri Ayutthaya (circa 17th-18th centuries.) While those multiple layers of cut paper are juxtaposed onto the monk robes, there are lines flying across the space, where ideas of magical realism exists in parallel with what we call ‘the modern’. The notion about spectacle and magical realism reinforces the patrimonial structure and the status quo of power relations in  Thai culture and its politics. And, it is also a reflection of conflicts between human destiny and political economics, which make the relationship of the constant change of lines to be associated with the rhythm  of life. The squiggly lines reinforce the chaos of the layers behind them, as yet they themselves have become an elemental part integrated into the chaotic movement on the surface.

 

An aspect that one becomes very aware of as a viewer is the scale of the images. We are equally compelled to step back, [ way back ] to try and take the whole image in as we are drawn in to the very details of the layers. Could you talk about your reasons for the large format?

TS: Due to the starting point of the idea about spectacle, the large format is necessary – so as the position of the audiences has been turned into that of just spectators, and they also need to adjust their viewing position in order to experience the works, so that perhaps leads them to re-think what they essentially believed and understood.

 

And how about the other objects / installations that complete the exhibition; do they come from a similar starting point in terms of content / intention?

TS: Copper wires are also mixed and worked into the surface, engaging ideas of material transformation and transformation of experience that can be found in rituals and performances of alchemy. In addition, there is the hanging of uncanny objects made out of bamboo fish traps while copper material is also used to make objects and picture frames, implying the notion of a ‘mortal trap’ that also appears on the wall where the drawing pieces are hung. The objects reflect a kind of recycling gesture of form with what has become junk left over from the industrial economy.

 

What’s next? Do you plan to explore these works further or move toward something different?

TS: In fact, I have been working on a 13 zodiacs project which deals with more abstract ideas about time/space traveling.

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