Serralves opens exhibition about the children trapped in a cave in Thailand
In “No History in a room filled with people with funny names 5”, the viewer is invited to enter a kind of cave in a dark and nocturnal environment, stepping on a ground covered with earth mixed with shells and branches, where you can see a triple video projection, combined with green laser rays emitted from a sculpture that suggests a dead human figure.
This is the first exhibition in Portugal by Thai artist Korakrit Arunanondchai, who was unable to attend today due to the travel limitations of the covid-19 pandemic
Being a creator who moves between the fields of video, performance, sculpture and installation and who is divided between oriental culture, from his country of origin, and western culture, in particular that of the USA, where has lived in the past few years.
As in other works by Korakrit Arunanondchai, also in the exhibition “No history in a room filled with people with funny names 5” (2019), there is the participation of friends and family, the curator of the exhibition and artistic director of the Museum of Serralves, Philippe Vergne, highlighting the important presence of the rabbit, the animal that opens the exhibition and is present in several situations of the three videos shown.
In this exhibition, which combines ancestry, myths and beliefs with the facts of Thailand’s most recent history, as well as ecological problems and the extinction of animal species, there is also a highlight for Naga, a snake from Buddhist mythology, and for the artist Boychild, who develops work in the areas of performance and dance and who also participates in this video work by the Thai artist with various choreographies.
The artist reflects on contemporary life and the situation of humanity at the time of technology, speculating on the consequences of the Anthropocene, the recently defined era that marks the effect of human activity as the dominant environmental force on the planet, capable of altering its geological composition .
The work exhibited in Serralves, commissioned by the Center d’Art Contemporain Genève for the 2018 Biennale of Moving Image and presented at the Venice Biennale in 2019, will be open to the public until April 4.