Bussaraporn Thongchai, Who deserves the bed? 2017 drawing on paper, 130 x 120 cm
Pieces From Berlin
Bussaraporn Thongchai
In 2015 Thai artist Bussaraporn Thongchai relocated from Bangkok to Berlin. Once settled she began working at Ban Ying, a small shelter home providing services for migrant women from Africa, southeast Asia and eastern Europe who had often been the victims of human trafficking and the sex trade. Pieces from Berlin is the outcome of two years in the shelter, specifically designed to document the women’s stories and experiences as they applied for asylum in the context of traffiking, or applied for refugee status. It was first presented at ARDEL’s Third Place Gallery, Bangkok in March 2018 and is being presented at 16albermarle with six new works made in 2020.
Artist Statement
In 2017, I was invited by Ardel Gallery to exhibit my work in Bangkok. It was actually the same year that I started to work as a cultural and language mediator at Ban Ying e.V., a home shelter in Berlin. It was after two years of living in Germany, learning a new language, working as a cleaner in the kitchen of a Thai restaurant and losing the art network which I had built up my whole life as an independent female artist. Of course, it was a massive culture shock and identity crisis, it was a big transition in every aspect of my life. I suddenly became a stranger and lost the sense of belonging in both Thailand and Germany, as if I was in the middle of somewhere that I still hadn’t left and still hadn’t reached.
An anonymous shelter hiding in a normal residential building. It is a place where my Self-Observation Process has begun intensively and continuously. There is a long narrow hallway which leads you to many separate rooms on each side. Behind these doors, there are the several lives of women and children who experienced violence, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Well, but here in this house we call them ‘Clients’.
They came from different countries, speak different languages, have different backgrounds and believe in different gods. I observe them and see distinctions and similarities I can relate to. I see the difficulties they have in getting along with the unknown culture and social system, trying to adjust, to compromise with themselves and with the others, tackle obstacles and face prejudice and discrimination. Simultaneously, they have to recover both physically and mentally after their traumatic experiences.
For someone from a third world country like me, it is hard to believe that these things happen in Germany, a developed country and a country that sees itself as an exemplary democracy. At the same time, it’s also a source, transit and destination country subject to trafficking in people, and where the number of reported cases of racial discrimination is still continuously increasing. In this sense, the trauma doesn’t seem to go away but double.
While the ethical and political questions are constantly and often fiercely being discussed and reflected outside the shelter home, I still accompany these women and their children everywhere as usual. My self-observation doesn't seem to be any less but expands in many directions. The state of being nobody, neither an artist nor whoever I was before, has transformed me into being just a human who wants to approach the basic needs and at the same time fight for my rights and the dignity of being a human, the same as you and others.
Before I started to work on this series and brought them back to Thailand in 2017, I asked myself:
“What would happen if I bring all these stories back to where I come from? The place that I'm not able to stop looking at and thinking of. If a small piece of the Berlin Wall can be sold as a tourist's souvenir, I too can bring back these stories I collected, as pieces from Berlin”
Bussaraporn Thongchai
24 February 2021