Somtam Nomad
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Images Courtesy of James Menges
In many a city-centers around the world rare pockets of green spaces are cleared to make way for buildings, impacting in both visible and invisible ways on local people and their way of life. The video footage in this performance presented at Bangkok Art and Culture Center (BACC), is of the site itself when it was a park that offered refuge to the homeless and to other individuals to rest in for a while. Along with their pets, the strays they adopted and cared for, they formed a community at that time. The 2nd component of the video footage is of the start of the construction of the Art Center, which is played backwards, and footage of a projection of a virtual walk-through the gallery spaces that was presented at the launch of BACC before it was built.
In front of this backdrop that brings together the past, the virtual, and the real worlds, we bring in Frida Kahlo and Weeping Woman to make somtam (papaya salad) and serve it to the janitors and security staff at BACC, and to the art goers.