Detail (2005)
site-specific intervention into Jim Thomson House, Bangkok
‘Inter-weaving Cultures’, Jim Thompson House and Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand
curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong(Th), Sachiko Namba(Jp), Ann Coxon(GB)
24 oil paintings on the back of Jim Thompson™ silk ‘canvases’ (20x20cm) placed throughout the museum to authentic Thai life.
The paintings were of everyday objects (ladders, plastic buckets, mops, park benches, the inside of madrassa) from photos taken by the local Ban Krua community. The paintings served as interventions into the authentic context.
After the exhibition, the intention was to give the people who had taken the photos the paintings.
Instead, after 6 weeks on exhibition, the intervention was censored and paintings were moved to the ‘neutral’ space of the adjacent gallery. No documentation was allowed to be seen or referred to again in any future press. It was as if the original intervention never existed.
