A curator is a key person who works behind the scenes to organise an art exhibition for the public. In order to find new curators, SAC Gallery launched the project "Star! Art Curator" last year to provide opportunities to aspiring curators to work with SAC Gallery's professional crew.
Patticha Thitithammaporn, former manager of Duke Contemporary Art Space, won the competition and learned how to work as a curator while organising her debut exhibition "The Place Of Memories".
"A curator is a storyteller through art. She/he has a story that she/he wants to tell and uses various art materials and ways to convey it. A curator does not need to tell stories directly. An exhibition requires interpretations from viewers and it is the curator's job to create stories that allow viewers to question art in their own way," said Patticha.
Patticha is interested in digital art because it can be created without limits. Three artists -- Tewprai Bualoi, Thanawat Numcharoen and Vacharanont Sinvaravatn -- exhibited their works at "The Place Of Memories" using the help of the internet and technology.
"Digital art does not limit artwork to a canvas. These three artists used the internet and technology as their raw materials to create unexpected images. I had several discussions with them in order to understand their digital equipment and processes," said Patticha.
The video from This Room Is Too Small For People by Thanawat Numcharoen. (Photo: Apichart Jinakul)
The exhibition "The Place Of Memories" explores the relationship between information sets stored in an "abstract space" and connects different activities that happen in the online world. In today's digital age, people save their stories or memories in several places such as iCloud or social media. However, because of the multitude of data, most people do not recall stories or messages that they posted or shared in the past.
"The exhibition is about the storage of memories in today's digital age. We keep our memories on several platforms even though we sometimes have no idea how and where our content is stored. When I saw reminders of my statuses on social media from the past, I often did not remember them. I could not recall why I wrote or shared those messages with others. I feel that in the present time, I am not the same person that I was in the past," she said.
Thanawat Numcharoen created the installation This Room Is Too Small For People based on his workspace which displays things on the table such as models and photos of memes. Next to his table, visitors can view a video on the wall which shows images of similar working spaces. Visitors can see the same image within the same image endlessly through the video.
Vacharanont Sinvaravatn added a water tank in the painting Countryside In The Evening. ( Photos courtesy of SAC Gallery)
"If visitors keep watching the video, they can see objects in the videos move around. In this exhibition, Thanawat transformed an image of Godzilla, which is a physical object, into a 3D digital model by using a program called Mesh Room," said Patticha.
Paintings of scenes of Thailand's rural areas have particular characteristics. In one painting, a hut or a house on stilts is located in lush green fields or next to beautiful beaches. In The Countryside Before Memories, artist Vacharanont Sinvaravatn questions why the typical pictures of rural areas differ from the countryside in real life. He searched for information about rural areas in the past and created a 19-minute video essay.
"The video essay provides information about the first and second National Economic and Social Development Plans and Mittraphap Road, Thailand's first standardised highway, which the US helped with the construction budget. In this video, Vacharanont also created his own images of Thailand's rural areas in 3D format by using the program ZBrush. Apart from the video, the artist illustrated four paintings which are different from typical rural area paintings since he included a road, electrical wires, utility poles and a water supply tank in the paintings," said the curator.
The third artist, Tewprai Bualoi, used to believe that devices could store information and last for a long time. However, when a hard disk with all his stored information of memories crashed, he realised that the memories were vulnerable. In the collection "I Will Always Think Of You Fondly", he took the hard disk apart and showcased the individual pieces in a transparent box called HGST 5K 1000-750 in order to remind viewers that memories are vulnerable and can disappear.
Tewprai Bualoi's HGST 5K 1000-750 showcases the individual pieces of a hard disk.
"An image that we see on a screen is created with pixels or digital codes. To make his memory last longer, Tewprai used a computer program to transform his personal videos into a QR Code. Then, he put some QR Codes into solid materials such as stainless steel and marble. He found that marble can last for 3,000 years, so embedding the QR Code in marble will keep his memories safe for a very long time," said Patticha.
Patticha experienced many challenges while working on this exhibition. She had to figure out how to incorporate storytelling and work with different artists because each of them had their own ideas and styles. Patticha appreciated the experience and hopes that there will be more opportunities for curators.
"In Thailand, there is no lack of curators. In reality, curators need more opportunity to create. Currently, there is a market for non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, and other types of digital assets that help artists sell their works online without going through art galleries. If the NFT market starts to boom in Thailand, curators can work on more platforms. There will be more digital exhibitions and curators can help artists to create more interesting stories and brochures," said Patticha.
The QR Code for Tewprai's memories were engraved into an untitled marble tablet.
"The Place Of Memories" runs at SAC Gallery, Sukhumvit 39, until June 12. Admission is free. Due to the Covid-19 situation, the exhibition is open by appointment only. Visit facebook.com/sacbangkok or call 02-662-0299.
