IN THIS LATEST EXHIBITION FROM PIYARAT PIYAPONGWIWAT, THE ARTIST IS ASKING US TO PAUSE AND RETHINK WHETHER THE PROBLEMS OUR WORLD IS FACING ARE ALL THE RESULTS OF THE MADNESS THAT IS CAPITALISM
TEXT: PRATCHAYAPOL LERTWICHA
PHOTO COURTESY OF GALLERY VER
(For Thai, press here)
Apart from the COVID-19 pandemic that is still harrowingly devastating and disrupting people’s lives, the world is facing relentless waves of other problems and conflicts, from environmental to social and economic issues, directly and indirectly causing everyone to struggle even harder in order to survive. From here and there, we have heard someone say that we are the source of all these problems and if there’s anything that needs fixing, it is us. But Piyarat Piyapongwiwat, a Thai artist with an artistic repertoire that expands between different types of media, from video, photographs and Installation art, is asking us, the viewers, through her latest exhibition ‘Where Do We Go From Here?’, to pause and rethink about the crisis we find ourselves in and whether they are all the results of the madness that is capitalism.
Piyarat’s work has always been constantly criticizing the existence and effects of capitalist systems and social values. But this time around, the artist expands her critique to a global scale. The exhibition room is bathed with yellow light, rendering a sense of warmth that also feels enigmatic, seductive and rigid at the same time. Placed in the middle of the room is a large wooden container that looks like a cargo box, and inside a video is being screened with buzzing noises filling the space.
The video is made up of footage the artist found online along with footage she captured herself. Pieced and superimposed, the moving images depict the effects of capitalism in different shapes and forms, from innovations, commercial products, massive vessels that mobilize sea transportation, to the pandemic, environmental problems, the birth of concentration camps, and child labor. Moreover, the video points out the uncontrollable and borderless impacts of capitalism and the infiltration of the system on a global scale, affecting humans and causing a ripple effect on practically everything in the world, from gigantic icebergs to microorganisms invisible to our bare eyes.
At a corner of the main gallery stands another segment of the exhibition. With a mood that is entirely different from the main exhibition room, the area is a small room illuminated with white light that feels a lot friendlier than the space with iridescent yellow illumination. Displayed inside are paintings of different species of flowers and plants. There are also oil paintings of the natural landscapes, which appear in the video that is being screened in the other room such as the scenes taken from footage of a mining accident or a time-lapse of a melting iceberg. The video screened in the center of the room projects images of the drawings of flowers and plants on loop. From the depiction of the endless assimilation of capitalism in the first room, to the fragility of nature portrayed in this room, we cannot help but think about whether it’s time for us— humans and the world we live in, to question the road we’re walking on, and how our next steps should be taken to prevent the current crisis we’re facing from becoming worse than it already is. Or if we should just stand still, do nothing, let ourselves be swallowed by this infinite cycle, just like being trapped in the video of endlessly superimposed images on loop, bathed in the alluring yellow light without end.
Where Do We Go From Here? is now showing at Gallery VER until June 26th, 2021.