11th March -15th April 2005
Lak-ka-pid, Lak-ka-perd

The Bangkok Invisible Landscapes

Bangkok has gone through so many changes during the past decades, globalisation and capitalisation have been major factors both here and other cities in Asia. The changes are even more so significant in Bangkok, as it faces the brink of reorganisation the entire city space. The rearrangement of the city space has become a crucial way for the government to re-organise the Thai society, for example using the zoning system to organise the economics and social structure of Bangkok and to move long-established housing areas and slums from the center in order to increase the economic area, governmental facilities, and infrastructure by building a new metro and sky train. Needless to say there are many factors involved in those changes. New technological developments and means of transportation, the increasing number of foreigners and free movement of labour force between regions and neighbouring countries and the increased visibility of gay culture in public domain and so on. These factors create the additional invisible layers which are placed upon the visible conditions of the city. The old boundaries no longer exist or function in the same way. This transforms the organisation of the space as well as the relationship between the space and its habitants.

‘Lak-ka-pid-lak-ka-perd: The Bangkok Invisible Landscapes’ is a collection of projects, consisting of art exhibitions, lectures and a screening with the theme of the city of Bangkok. It aims to illustrate and question the transformation of spaces in urban life within Bangkok. Amidst the rapid changes of Bangkok’s landscapes and the overused term ‘globalisation’ without any meaningful consideration. We are in urgent need of a response and to realise how these phenomena will effect the citizens in Bangkok. The project aims to explore an alternative kind of geography, of mapping, reading and dealing with the weary subject of ‘self’ versus ‘other’. The project is aided by the Thai term ‘lak-ka-pid,lak-ka-perd’ (literally translated means ‘sometimes open-sometimes closed’) which signifies the unsettling process of arranging matter/thing/person in any particular side of the binary, as well as to suggest a manner that characterizes Thai people. We hope that ‘Lak-ka-pid,Lak-ka-perd: The Bangkok Invisible Landscapes’ can also be views as an on-going open-ended process that tirelessly attempts to deconstruct the boundaries of binary opposition. Beyond the binary perception, both domestic and international artists, filmmakers and scholars whilst dealing with the subjects may provide the starting point from which to embark on a quest for the alternative approach that we need today.

Curators
Sopawan Boonnimitra
Miya Yoshida

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