Can you sing the national anthem?

2015. Neon tubes

10 cm x 239 cm

 

This work is a part of the project “messages from nowhere to nowhere” (2015). The project was initiated and executed

in Pattaya city and the surrounding area in Chonburi province where I spent three months as an artist at Thaillywood

Artist Residency. 

 

In this project, I work in the field of how global cultural flows in age of globalization. The idea of ‘translocality’ was taken

from the book ‘Modernity at Large:  Cultural Dimensions of Globalization’ by a contemporary anthropologist, Arjun Appadurai.

 

In the age of globalization, technology and mobility are increasing, which has caused many borders to be blurred. Appadurai

proposed that the movement or the flow of people, money, communication, technology, and ideas between cultures is

increasingly significant. ‘Non-places’ like tourist sites, free trade areas, border zones, refugee camps, migrant hostels, etc.

bring local cultures into the realm of translocal cultures. 

 

I chose to work on the subject of ‘translocality’ in Pattaya city where a tourist zone may be described as a kind of ‘translocality’,

even the city lies nominally within the jurisdiction of a nation-state. The city comprises of people from various background,

ethnicity, race etc., and is considered to be a city with high rate of migration. 

 

I collected conversations from residents living in the area, and then re-created and echo these ‘meaningless’ and ‘unheard’

voices. The dissatisfactions and disappointment are implied through messages of the owner. With issues from the poor living 

condition and to political situation. The owner of the messages are mostly people who migrate to Pattaya city giving reasons

ranging from economical factors to simply a matter of choice. The messages themselves not only resonate with Pattaya city

society, but also the society at large.

 

In “Can you sing the national anthem?” (2015), I selected a sentence from those residents and re-created it as a neon artwork. 

I selected neon tubes as a medium in order to represent the Pattaya nightlife.

 

A full text exhibition catalogue is written by Worathep Akkabootara Download Catalogue PDF