Som Supaparinya, MO NUM EN TS, 2025, film still. Courtesy: the artist and Jim Thompson Art Center, Bangkok
“At first glance, Supaparinya’s video installation might give an impression of archive-validated celebration, even nationalist bravado. Yet her compositional decision to collage multiple views into a single screen fractures these archives’ historical certainty: while together the images form a seemingly seamless shot, subtle dividing lines point to the Cold War’s ideological ruptures. In a quotidian shot of Thai and Lao vendors engaged in their work at the rambunctious Thai–Lao market by the Mekong River in Nakhon Phanom, a single vertical line persistently separates the two people on screen – alluding to the countries’ tense Cold War relations, marked by border skirmishes and ideological conflict.”
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