The Silpathorn Awards this year have been given to eight mid-career artists in various disciplines. Initiated by the Ministry of Culture in 2004, the awards are conceived as encouragement for artists between the ages of 30-50 for their accomplishments in contemporary art.
In the past nine years, Silpathorn Awards have been given to 52 artists. This year’s winners range from artists who honour traditions to those who challenge them, from those who find novel ways of expressing unique Thai vernacular to those who set out to create universal designs, from a music conductor to a performance artist to a film director.
Chaiyut Plypetch
Design
Chaiyut Plypetch came to the Silpathorn Award ceremony straight from work. When his name was announced, he stood up and blew the audience a kiss. The man behind Mr. P (of the brand Propaganda), the cheeky boy with an incredibly versatile penis, functioning as a light switch, a corkscrew, a hanger and a keychain, is incredibly cheeky himself.
He joked that he would spend award money paying off his girls.
“Well, no, seriously, I’ve been obsessed with 3D printers. It’s something that materialises your imagination quickly, as opposed to the slow moulding process of products,” he quickly added.
Chaiyut is involved in every step of construction for each of his products, from deriving a form for the initial concept to the complete creations, which range from toothbrush holders and umbrellas to tape dispensers and oven mitts.
The 47-year-old product designer has won countless awards, including the Good Design Award in 2000 and 2002 from The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design and the Red Dot Design Award.
At 10 years old, the iconic Mr. P has made a name for himself across the globe, and has been presented at the Maison & Objet and Foreland trade shows in France and Denmark.
“He’s me, his story is sort of my story. But only content-wise, not proportionally size-wise for sure,” Chaiyut said, winking.
He uses the Mr. P One Man Shy Lamp at home, and claims to be tickled whenever he flicks the phallic switch.
“People must be thinking that the designer is so profane,” he said.
But his sense of humour, clearly reflected in products, is more whimsical than irreverent.
Chaiyut has been making art for a long time. He sees himself growing up as a problem child. He was antisocial, always drawing, always imagining. He had his own private world.
“But I wasn’t the kind of problem child that causes trouble or harm to others. The worst thing I did was steal my brother’s homework notebook to draw in it,” he said. “We didn’t have much money, so I didn’t have many toys. This was my way of creating my own toys, creating my own stories. So it seems to me as if I have been designing products since I was a child.”
His first professional graphic design was printed on drinking glasses.
And his plans for the future?
“Should I actually tell you?” he answered, half-joking. “I want to make sex toys, the product for the people.”
— Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana
Jarunun Phantachat
Performing Art
Like any other actor in small-scale theatres, Jarunun Phantachat, began her career worrying whether she could really make a living.
“But someone told me that if I don’t make a career out of it, it’s never going to be a career. So I quit my job and really put myself into it.”
Years later, not only has she become an actress, playwright and director, the 38-year-old also helped found B-Floor Theatre in 1999. It’s a group best known for presenting various issues and themes through physical theatre in which the human body is the main language and tool.
Jarunun helped developed the company’s “Theatre Lab”, through which she has brought out each individual actor’s special quality, be it their voice, personality or clothes. With a strong interest in the use of the body, she has also incorporated other performance techniques, including contemporary dance, mime, the use of masks, gymnastics and martial arts.
Her notable works include writing a script for a play adaptation of Kanok Songsompane’s short story Pan Din Uen (The Other Land) and creating a performance, Rod Gaeng, in which the audience was invited to take part in the show. While one actor was playing music, the other invited the audience to help cook, adding salt, sugar and chilli.
Today, though quite established in the theatre scene, her main concern revolves around how drive and support others in the industry — the Take off Festival, an ongoing project which offers drama graduates a chance to put on productions, is one good example.
“Contemporary performance in our country is really great. We have quality people like Pichet who have taken khon to international recognition. Our new generation of artists have great ideas and I think these works are more exciting than those in small-scale theatres in New York.
“Now it’s a question for the state, private sectors and also artists themselves as to what we should do next. How do we go forward to the international level? Do we need more help or do we have to push ourselves more?”
— Kaona Pongpipat
Suriya Umpansiriratana
Architecture
Suriya Umpansiriratana began his career in landscape architecture. He has earned recognition in associating elements that seem incompatible, notably in his work that interprets Buddhism through simplicity.
“I’m so glad to be born under the shade of this religion. It teaches me to never stop learning,” he said.
Wat Khao Buddha Kho Dom (Buddha Kho Dom Hill Temple) is the reflection of his aesthetic exploration that won him a highly commended honourable mention at the Architecture Review Awards in 2011.
For the curved roof of the temple, he chose recycled materials to ensure the least disturbance to the structure’s surroundings, which he believes to be the most crucial element with which architects should be concerned.
“If we destroy, we have to make sure what we build out of that is valued in a good way,” he said.
Suriya’s metaphorical use of a monk’s yellow robe as decoration on the roof, however, has attracted some controversy.
Some critics have said that Suriya’s art is a total misunderstanding of the Buddhist concept in which monks are taught to leave behind all temptations, including decorations.
“I want people to see through the context I’d like to convey. I build from what we have, the budget, the materials. I build the place considering usage as a priority,” he said.
He also gave brief advice to the younger generation — be observant and try to squeeze out ideas independent of books.
“Every day we are walking past tons of ideas, but it is your choice to pick them up or leave them there. Every day is a book awaiting for you to read on,” he said.
He has roles as a garden creator, artist and the founder and CEO of the architecture companies named Walllasia and Kyai-Suriya.
In 2012, he became the first Thai to win the Global Award for Sustainable Architecture.
The Silpathorn Award comes with a cash prize of 100,000 baht, which Suriya said he will use “to pay off all debts” and “do something good”.
— Salisa Traipipitsiriwat
Pairoj Teeraprapa
Graphic Art
Pairoj Teeraprapa, also known as Roj Siamruay, is best known for his contribution to the Thai vernacular style in graphic design, and for his creation of the family of Siamruay (SR) fonts.
He designed the playbill for Wisit Sasanatieng’s Thai Western Fah Ta Lai Jone in 2000. The “SR FahtalaiJone” font, which hadn’t even been completed by the time the film was shown, was so eye-catching and so characteristically Thai that it became the most downloaded free font in Thailand.
Pairoj continued to collaborate with Wisit on many of his subsequent films, resulting in fonts like “Mah”, from the film Citizen Dog, and “SR PenChoov”, from the film The Unseeable.
Apart from his accomplishments in typography, he also ran a souvenir shop, Siamruay, which offered for sale his graphic designs printed on shirts, bags and other goods. Siamruay closed down in 2012.
Pairoj now busies himself giving talks and engaging in discussions about the state of design, and teaching courses on typography in universities. He is also the proud owner of The Chonabod, a shop he opened after Siamruay’s shut down.
— Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana
Surasi Kusolwong
Visual Art
“Art is life” — that’s probably the most fitting description of Surasi Kusolwong.
The visual artist catches the world’s eyes by displaying daily life and typical surroundings which, to him, are the things that people experience every day but never pay attention to.
He infuses the Thai soul with the diversity of the world. The idea of visualising divisible uniformity is a distinctive point of his work.
Walking around his illustrations feels like circumnavigating the world. The mixture of cultural identity, other cultures, economics, society and politics is an insistence of his belief that all things are uniform.
His major exhibition, “Talad”, in Taipei, Taiwan in 2000, explained his fondness for associating every aspect of life in his work. Everyday objects from Thailand were organised to simulate a typical market, including a TV set, videos and Thai country and pop music, flattering all sensations.
He said he received his special ability to see things beyond from his mother.
What will he be doing with the Silpathorn cash prize?
“Spending it,” he said.
— Salisa Traipipitsiriwat
Rewat Panpipat
Literature
Rewat Panpipat is a household name.
In 2004, he won the SEA Write Award for his poetry collection Maenam Ramleuk (Recalling The River). He has also won the Look Lok See Kiew Award, as well as the Seven Books Award. He was the poetry editor for Kom Chad Luek between 2005-08.
Rewat’s varied experiences growing up in Suphan Buri — toiling as a farmer, being recruited as a soldier, working in a shoe factory and a gardener — have been the source of endless material and inspiration for his writing.
Rewat experiences widely and explores deeply. He impeccably draws greater significance from his own stories, relaying a striking portrait of modern society. Through his poignant prose and poetry, he pulls readers into his agrarian world, reflecting upon the most basic human needs and desires. His work based on his childhood never ceases to engage readers, allowing them to discover the relevance of our personal histories in our contemporary selves.
— Pimrapee Thungkasemvathana
Kongdej Jaturanrasmee
Film
Early in his filmmaking career, Kongdej Jaturanrasmee smuggled personal idiosyncrasies into big studio movies. In his first film, Sayew, he tells the story of a tomboy who finds a job writing raunchy articles for a pornographic magazine.
In Kod (Handle Me With Care), the main protagonist is a three-armed man who journeys to Bangkok to have his extra limb hacked off, only to find that he doesn’t know what he’s got until it’s almost gone.
But it wasn’t until Kongdej decided to go indie — to work with smaller budgets and free himself from the studio system — that he blossomed. Earlier this year he directed Tang Wong, a teen drama charged with a political allegory, which became one of the best-reviewed films of 2014 and won Best Picture at the Subannahongsa Awards, the closest thing in Thailand to the Oscars.
His new film, a documentary about novice monks called A-wang (So Be It), will premiere at the Busan International Film Festival in South Korea in October.
An architecture graduate from King Mongkut University of Technology Ladkrabang, Kongdej is also a songwriter, singer, musician, screenwriter and script doctor. But as a film director, Kongdej’s career is marked by the perennial dilemma of a moviemaker who strives to balance commercial feasibility with artistic ambition. “I wonder what defines my own originality,’’ Kongdej said in an early interview. “I’ve made commercial films, but in every film I try to add my personal touch. So what is the real me, the commercial writer/director or the independent filmmaker who wants everything that I want? And what is it that I can do better? I’m looking for the answer myself.”
Perhaps he’s already found it.
— Kong Rithdee
Vanich Potavanich
Music
Vanich Potavanich is a conductor of the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (BSO), who has achieved international recognition. He has appeared as guest conductor with many world-famous orchestras, including the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
When he’s not wielding the baton, Vanich is a composer and arranger for classical, chamber and jazz bands, as well as film scores, a career in which he has completed over 400 pieces of music. Before fronting the BSO, Vanich served as the orchestra’s first trumpet for over 18 years.
A graduate of Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Vanich furthered his musical studies at the Rotterdam Conservatory before returning to Thailand to join the National Symphony Orchestra and, later, the BSO.
— Salisa Traipipitsiriwat
