2017, video, single channel video, 5.57 min, black and white
Roundabout at km 0 portrays the pausing and reversing travel around a roundabout through moving images. The roundabout’s location is “kilometer zero;” the original starting point of Thailand’s national highway system—and, most significantly, also the location of Thailand’s Democracy Monument. Thailand has 4 main national highways which originally run from here to 4 part of Thailand; no. 1 to the north, no. 2 to the Northeast (Isaan), no. 3 to the East and no. 4 to the south. Today, the national highway no.1 has a name, “Phahonyothin Road”, but was originally called “Prachathipat Road” (ถนนประชาธิปัตย์, Thanon Prachathipat, literally “Democratic Road”). This place has delineated as the “beginning” of all roads—literal and figurative—throughout Thailand. It’s also possible to run those roads run in reverse. The work uses this Bangkok location, which every Thai person will recognize, but perhaps without appreciate its meaning. The struggle between Thailand’s ideological poles has led to stalemate and stagnation of both ruler and system. Thai people seem blind to the clear picture of a brighter future—all is blurred. The audio that coincides with the moving images is a mixture of audio recordings pulled from Youtube videos of incidents of the Thai military cracking down on demonstrations that have taken place since the coup of 2014 to 2017.
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Roundabout at km 0 produced and showed with Unintentionally Waiting for a Duo exhibition at Leo Gallery Shanghai.
The project works around the notion of time wasted in transit. The 2 works that use cityscapes—Bangkok and the city of Chiang Mai—to show the condition of two dissimilar journeys, struggling for the chance to move forward. In the big picture, Thailand has been struggling with political turmoil for more than 10 years. At the provincial level, local governments struggle with shrinking budgets to facilitate public services. The centralization of budgets and authority in Bangkok maintains the weakness of provincial Thailand. At both the local and central levels, the country has lost the opportunity to enhance its potential and move forward.
“Roundabout at km 0” has been shown in the following exhibitions and countries:
2023
[Current] After Hope: Video of Resistance, Peabody Essex Museum, USA, in Collaboration with Asian Art Museum. [11 March – 31 December 2023].
2020
After Hope: Videos of Resistance, the video program under #MuseumFromHome and engage with art at a distance policy, the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco, USA [Open from Spring 2021]
2018
Art Basel Hong Kong – Film Sector, Hong Kong Arts Centre Cinema and Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre [23 March 2018]
2017
SUTTHIRAT SUPAPARINYA + YUAN KERU DUO EXHIBITION, Leo Gallery, Shanghai, China [20 May to 22 July 2017]
2016