You're likely to stumble and fumble as you make your way through the darkened H Gallery and artist Jedsada Tangtrakulwong's latest show "Eclipse". Plunged in near-total obscurity, visitors find themselves drawn to the dim glimmers projected by low-hanging light bulbs.
These in turn successively reveal a veiled office desk, notebooks filled with work in progress, a series of photographs hung on the wall and finally, an installation of nearly 100 blackened books.
Finding one's way is at the centre of Jedsada's work. An immersive experience that deals with the loss of direction, "Eclipse" interlaces both deeply personal experiences with events that shook the entire country.
"It isn't quite a rupture," Jedsada says, likening both the private and public layers of his exhibition to a seam connecting two pieces of cloth. A transition from darkness to light, the eclipse is merely a temporary phenomenon during which confusion occurs before all returns to a state of normality.
In the fall of 2016, the artist lost some of his belongings to a flood that hit one of his storage places in Bangkok. Drawings and books, which he had collected over the years, became engorged with water -- triggering anger and sadness in the artist.
"At first, I didn't even dare to look at those pieces of my life lost," he further explains. But he eventually went through the damage.
The bloated paper had a puffiness to it. Distorted and taking various, uncontrolled shapes, the books became akin to sculptures -- an accidental act of creation caused by natural disaster. Rather than throwing them out, Jedsada decided to work with them. Coincidentally, the next few weeks would see the passing of King Bhumibol. The national mourning and uncertainty that followed was mirrored by the artist's own unsettled situation, as he relocated to Chiang Mai during that time.
In the past year, artists have been keen to evoke the country's climate of doubt and uncertainty, but Jedsada, by merging private and public layers in his work, does so with a profound sincerity that sets him apart.
Photographs of a border-area forest, with hazy and nebulous paths, echo the artist's own journey, as he set out to find his way in unfamiliar territories. The gloom of the landscape seems menacing at first sight, much like the gallery space's obscurity, until one becomes used to it and begins to see more clearly.
In stark contrast with the transition Jedsada reflects on, the books he has laid out on the floor are opened and rigid, as if frozen in time, leaving one unable to flick through the pages.
Eclipse is on view at H Gallery, Sathorn 11, until Jan 25. Photos courtesy of Jedsada Tangtrakulwong
"Once the books had dried, the paper became stiff and pages were stuck together," he adds. Suddenly, parts of the book became inaccessible, forcing readers to concentrate on some passages and leaving others forever concealed.
The blackening of these books -- an act of destruction by man, which followed nature's initial wreckage of the items -- also can stand as an allegory to censorship in Thailand.
The exhibition as a whole, meanwhile, functions as an allegory for transition, past and future represented through the ruined books and the notepads once seen displayed near the gallery entrance.
Shielded and separated from the rest of the exhibition space by a mosquito net, a fluid and transparent partition line, the works in progress add a layer of intimacy to the work. "The notebooks are my own. They contain sketches as well as snippets of my life, some of them not intended to be shown," he says. As such, the artist proceeded to self-censor, covering up entire pages.
While the books, the light bulbs and work desk could be recreated in another location, they transport visitors to a dusky universe, humid and stifling, owing to the gallery's lack of air-conditioning and the visual presence of a mosquito net, or a burial site of which we are reminded through the carefully laid-out ruins.
Nonetheless, "Eclipse" is a living exhibition, an "improvisation" as Jedsada calls it, as he continues to add to the pile of research papers and notes on his work desk at each visit he makes to the gallery.
"Eclipse" is on view at H Gallery, Sathon 11, until Jan 25.
