INTIMATE MEMORABILIA
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Exhibition and Performance
@Low Fat Art Festival
Bangkok,
2019
"Memory is not an instrument for surveying the past but its theatre. It is the medium of past experience, just as the earth is the medium in which dead cities lie buried. He who seeks to approach his own buried past must conduct himself like a man digging." - Walter Benjamin
The Thang Nguan Vintage House is a place where time freezes: from its decadent walls and faded colors to its neighboring communities, you suddenly find yourselves in another era. Once inside, after the narrow staircase that gives access to the terrace, visitors are immersed within layers of objects, still imprinted with collective personal memories.
The project, developed through a series of ephemeral rooms, does nothing more than emphasizing and creating a path between these fragments that were once used and nowadays are still intact: the aim is to preserve their peculiar value through pure matter within a theatrical space. The exhibition has been designed as an architectural still life, where, through delicate surfaces and heterogeneous openings, you are able to be face to face with these objects. This curated space is a point of departure to be part of someone's recollection of playing - eating - travelling.
As architects, we not only assembled personal relics, images, photographs, and other documents but we became archivists who, shaping the geometry and the materiality of the rooms, were able to frame multiple views on this intimate past. For the first time, this private space is open to the public, which becomes the main actor, in dialogue with belongings and pieces of uncle Poonsak's story.
During the festival the deck of this house became a meeting point for all the people of the neighborhood, with events during the day and concerts in the evening. After the dismantling of the exhibition, the stage set has been used for performances by local artists.The whole structure is super light, composed of three metal curved rails, coloured in bright pink, holding white translucent curtains to frame three different spaces - punctured by an intricate path made of terrazzo-like rubber scrap. This linear carpet guides through the objects on the floor, leaning also towards the central table – a sculptural piece constructed with inverted traditional Thai wooden trusses, found on site.
Designed and directed by
Lemonot
with
Wayla Amatathammachad
Riewparboon Watnaree
Kanich Khajohnsri
Atichart Watanapichetpong
Praewrung Chantumrongkul
Natcha Thanachanan
Photos
Prin Tumsatan