NSW Visual Arts Preliminary and HSC Syllabus Focus:
Cultural Frame, Conceptual Framework (Artist/World)

Artist Information

A contemporary artist born in Korat, Thailand, in 1987, Tada Hengsapkul works primarily as a photographer, although in recent years video, installation and increasingly participatory works have taken on a greater prominence in his practice. His work is often informed by his painstaking research into political and social histories. He Is interested in the impact of the American military presence in Southeast Asia since the 1950s, and on the repression of dissent and political activism within Thailand under military rule.

Hengsapkul’s photographic work frequently depicts the nude human body, an expression of a desire for intimacy and a rejection of Thailand’s conservative attitudes around nudity and sexuality in images. He says that his practice is often concerned with investigating and resisting various forms of control — at the level of the body, the collective, and society. He explains the context in which he works: “Now Thailand has a crisis about controlling the large amount of people who have come out to claim rights and liberties.” Hengsapkul links concerns that are specific to his society in Thailand with experiences shared by many cultures globally.

Tada Hengsapkul’s birthplace of the Isan region of north-eastern Thailand has been home to American military bases since the period of the Second Indochina War (Vietnam War), and the communities affected by the lasting cultural and political legacies of this history have been a recurrent theme in his work. Aspects of the present-day issues in Thailand are thus linked to twentieth century histories which are regional in scale, and relate to the global Cold War, as well as processes of decolonization and modernisation. Tada has been exhibiting in Thailand since 2009, and internationally since 2011. His work was included in the 9th Asia Pacific Triennial at the Queensland Art Gallery and Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.

Sources for this information include:
https://www.tadahengsapkul.com/
https://eu.boell.org/en/young-voices-Tada-Hengsapkul
https://www.bkkartbiennale.com/archive/2020/artist/tada-hengsapkul

Useful Terminology

Site-Specific Installation
Participatory
Relational Aesthetics
Social Practice
Thermochromic

For Teachers

There are many interesting ways to incorporate Tada Hengsapkul’s work into Stage 6 Case Studies. Three possibilities are suggested here:

1. A Case Study focused on the artmaking practice of Hengsapkul in comparison with Ai Weiwei – in particular, Ai Weiwei’s works in Lego that document political prisoners and his installations shown on Alcatraz that deal with ideas of confinement: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/why-ai-weiwei-breaking-into-alcatraz-180952742/

2. A Case Study examining how artists (historical and contemporary) have explored abuses of power. Examples range from Goya and Kathe Kollwitz to Banksy, Ai Weiwei, Jenny Holzer, Paula Rego, Sebastião Salgado, Richard Bell and Zhao Zhao.

3. Students respond to an essay question with a prompt – “Abuse of Power Comes as No Surprise” (1983) by Jenny Holzer. Can artists hold the powerful to account and effect social change? In order to answer the question they should research the work of three artists who could be considered to be activists.

For Students

These questions can be considered during or after a gallery visit, or from observing the works online.

The Shards Would Shatter at Touch, 2017

The Shards Would Shatter at Touch is an interactive installation that invites audiences to participate in actions that reveal dark secrets. You are instructed to choose one of 49 pieces of cloth that have been painted with black thermochromic paint and hold it to your chest, where the heat of your body will cause an image of a face to appear. Each portrait revealed through this action of human warmth is one of the many political prisoners in Thailand, or a victim of the country’s recent violent political unrest. Participants can match their numbered portrait with more information, heightening the sense of connection they feel with the faces that their body heat has revealed on the fabric. Number 1, for example, is a 17-year-old boy, a close friend of the artist, who was shot in the head by a sniper’s bullet during a demonstration. Despite the best efforts of his family, no eyewitnesses ever came forward and no-one was willing to testify, so no-one has ever been held accountable for his death. Unsurprisingly, the work was shut down by military police when first shown in Bangkok.

• Why do you think the artist chose to use black thermochromic paint that is activated by body heat?

• What if the artist had chosen to simply exhibit the portraits of the political prisoners, without the participatory element? How would the impact of the work have been different, and how would its meaning/s be altered?

• What do you think is the significance of the title?

They Said They Didn’t Use Live Rounds, 2014

The artist photographed bullet holes left behind on concrete walls, metal poles and other urban infrastructure after protests were quashed by government forces in Bangkok. (Thailand has been under military rule since a coup in 2014). The military police said they did not use live rounds.

• Why do you think the artist has chosen to use extreme close-up, cropped images of the bullet holes in this work?

• What do you think the artist’s intention is in They Said They Didn’t Use Live Rounds?

• Do you think art can hold the powerful accountable and promote social change?

• Compare Hengsapkul’s work with a work by Chinese artist Liu Zhuoquan. Bullet is part of a series that documents the execution of prisoners in China (an artwork that cannot be shown in China). Information here: https://www.cobosocial.com/dossiers/one-man-liu-zhuoquan/
  https://niagaragalleries.com.au/exhibitions/liu-zhuoquan-2016/