Exhibitions
BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY
Jan 30 - Mar 21, 2021
All images courtesy of BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY
A child walked in and asked the Tree Council about history.
All the trees in the council just looked at each other, they didn’t answer the boy’s question.
Then, they pointed to two trees from a game, bustling about to return to their game world.
The child then followed the two trees.
Whilst they traveled to the virtual world.
Along the way, the boy saw questions on history.
He was well aware that the questions were not complete sentences.
Yet, the frequency of ambiguity seemed clearer in the messy space.
The boy stopped following the two trees.
And just like that, the expedition began!
THE IMMORTALS ARE QUITE BUSY THESE DAYS represents Nawin Nuthong’s most significant endeavor to disambiguate ideas of the “Threshold” since his conceptualization and engagement with the notion thus far. Such a Threshold, as postulated by Nawin, exists as a boundary demarcating the liminal space between experiences, thought, ideologies, histories, and narratives where these various fields coalesce. The Threshold further represents a limit that can be surpassed through ardent undertakings, and their coordinates of access are marked by “Threshold Guardians” that simultaneously serve as barriers to entry. Within the exhibition, the computer game serves as metaphor, illustration, and tool for the re-inscription of the operating mechanics of the human condition of existence. In his re-worlding of lived experience within the digital realm of the hyperreal, Nawin reveals reality as one mired by the weight of history and characterized by the simultaneous subversion and diminishment of its symbolic value simply by its writing. (An Essay on the Margins by John Tung)
b.1993, Bangkok, Thailand
Lives and works in Bangkok
Nawin Nuthong graduated from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, with a major in film studies and digital media. His art practice brought him to explore the contemporary art realm. He curated his first show PLATOEXPECTONUM (2017), followed by This nor Mundane (2018) and MAPPA (2019). He is currently one of the new managing members at Speedy Grandma independent art space in Bangkok. Nuthong is interested in the intersection of tales from the past, myths and legends as appeared in cultural media; video games, comics and films as well as how technology affects how we learn about history.
