174 / Neung Jed Si - A Short History of Thailand, 2025
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Neung Jed Si is a new research project that uses my family archive to create a mythic origin story for our chosen exile from Thailand. Initially conceived as a video essay, it now extends to an immersive installation and a print publication.
Neung Jed Si moves through a meditation on love and how the lover must journey to be reunited with their beloved. Beginning with Pridi Banomyong, my ancestor who was forced into self-exile by a military coup in the 1940s, the narrative expands on our legacy of diaspora and inner alienation from our country of origin. Reflecting this originstory along personal photographs and letters that surfaced in the process of returning to my Grandma’s house in Thailand, the timeframe of the work ranges from my parents’ long-distance relationship during my father’s studies, to the moment of their decision to remain abroad. Simultaneously, my family traces back to the historical capital of Ayutthaya and services to the king. Conflicted between these two tensions, sedentary and migrant, monarchist and revolutionary, shorelines and bodies of water become recurring motifs that represent this generational discomfort and desire for motion. The installation is accompanied by a sound piece, issued from a collaboration with Louis Fontenot and three vocalists, Ilse Griffin, Michael Llyod and Molly O’Connor. Fontenot's piece Seine / San Saep / Voice of Water composed for 174 / Neung Jed Si- A Short History of Thailand, utilizes field recorded sounds from the banks of the Seine and San Saep, bodies of water that flow through Paris and Bangkok respectively, each city holding ancestral significance to me. Water, a key medium in this work, lends its sound or voice in Fontenot's use within these soundscapes to remind us of the flow of time, history and our connection across existence to our ancestry and the geographic locales we make our homes by birth, choice, or necessity. Full text: https://www.reisigandtaylorcontemporary.com/exhibitions/174 |
Installation views: 174 / Neung Jed Si - A Short HIstory of Thailand, 2025. Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles
Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles |
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Mum, Aidos, 2025
Looped animation projected on tempered glass, C-stands Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles |
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Pomped Portal, 2025
CNC-carved foam, stucco, steel cables. 89 x 88 x 4 inches Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles |
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My Father Ruminates on the Origin of Love, 2025
Image transfers. Approximately 96 x 48 inches
Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles
Image transfers. Approximately 96 x 48 inches
Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles
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Rivers, 2025
Looped two-channel video. 00:06:00 minute duration
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174, 2025
Slide projection. 00:05:00 minute loop Photo credit: Reisig and Taylor Contemporary, Los Angeles |
