Work title: (Dis)Guise
Year : 2022
Medium: Gypsum board, fiber cement ,reflective glass , led light, clear acrylic, text, bronze and copper, ceramic and coffee.
Dimension height x width x depth: 220 x 240 x 50 CM. approx.
Exhibition : Shadow Dancing: Where Can We Find a Silver Lining in Challenging Times? 2022.
Panachai’s preceding interest is rooted in how the US military settlement in the space of his hometown Udonthani during the Cold War had concurringly altered provincial identity. From the online residency prior to this exhibition, he had developed and expanded his research in a more broader perspective within an analogical context.
He explores the notion of extra-territorial space, in other word a kind of third space that lay between dichotomy of existence, suggesting the sense of belonging yet out of place, a space that existing there yet undoes its own existence at the same instance.
Proceeding with his inquiry from the residency Panachai had carried out his investigation within the domestic space of Thailand where he came across the chronicle of Kuomintang 93rd Army Division who after retreating from Yunan in 1949, some of whom had successfully evacuated to Taiwan through the joint military program between Taiwan, Thailand, Burma and the US while others deserted and have dwelled in Northern part of Thailand until today.
Panachai appropriates such historical context through his artwork (Dis)Guise the cabinet-like installation. The title of the work perhaps suggests perpetual binary opposition as how certain materials in his work could be trace back to their source of provenience, yet by the manipulation and juxtaposition within the artwork such notion of origin is obscured and concealed.