Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat

Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat
Group Exhibition:
Angkrit Ajchariyasophon,
Torlarp Larpjaroensook,
LE Brothers with Gemini Kim,
Khvay Samnang,
Jedsada Tangtrakulwong,
Ploenchan Vinyarat

Curated by Loredana Pazzini-Paracciani
333Gallery / warehouse30

October 5 through Nov 3, 2024
Opening: October 5 at 6pm
Artists’ talk: October 5 at 4pm

The environment needs us, and we need the environment. It is that simple. Yet, despite commendable interventions and sincere climate actions by dedicated initiatives, environmental degradation continues – and we adapt to it.

The exhibition Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat emerges from the impulse to survive. In that, the title is suggestive, pointing to the paradox, or perhaps paradoxes, we face daily – the contradictory condition of caring for and concurrently inflicting damage to nature. While suggesting the process of drowning, in fact, the word “sinking” in the title relates to not only climate breakdown impacting global water patterns, but also, the sense of suffocating in our deteriorating environment, analogous to self-demise. On the other hand, the expression “staying afloat” points to the ability of adapting and maintaining a balance between two contrasting plights – dying and surviving – hence the paradox. Can we really persevere through destruction? How long before it is too late?

In responding to these questions, the curatorial framework for Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat pivots on two main concerns: the effects that climate change has on water, an essential element for life; and the need to return to our traditions of collaborating with nature and its creatures, along with the realization that we are forging an artificial nature that is turning hostile in response to the violence we are inflicting on it.

Geographically, Sinking and the Paradox of Staying Afloat looks at the Southeast Asian region. As global temperatures rise, glacial melting at an unprecedented rate impacts oceans and waterways, including Southeast Asia’s main rivers. In Thailand, the Mekong River and its tributaries are crucial for the country's sustainable future; however, its increasingly unstable tidal and seasonal patterns have tremendous consequences on the country's biodiversity as well as its cultural heritage. Staple food such as rice requires predictable water levels to grow, the unbalance of which endangers its very existence and other crops. Because of the additional water draining into rivers, major Southeast Asian cities such as Bangkok and Ayutthaya are subjected to major flooding events that transform the urban landscape and force city dwellers into different living conditions. The seasons are shifting, bringing extreme weather, affecting vegetation and crop growth periods. Health issues, threatened livelihoods, and the resolve to recycle, to convert waste into a new sustainable economy, become the new standards.

Responding to these concerns, the exhibiting artists are not mere spectators of their surroundings, but rather anthropologists, social workers and shamans, entering in relation with the living elements. Their works, from video and mixed media to paintings and sculptures made of recycled materials, to labor-intensive installations, hinge on community participation to impress upon us our individual responsibility to our planet.