Born 1980, Bangkok, Thailand
Suebsang (Kong) Sangwachirapiban is a curator, writer, teacher and scholar as well as a multidisciplinary artist. Better known for his artwriting and research than his artmaking, he often adopts new names and identities when exhibiting his artworks. He is interested in social issues of national identity and internationalism; his works in Other Possible Worlds offer a critique of essentialising notions of Thai superiority, and the fervent nationalism of the current government’s marketing campaigns.
In Smile State 1 and 2 (both 2016) Sangwachirapiban’s materials of brass sheet metal and submersible neon, emphasised by the scale of each installation, convey ideas of traditional Buddhist practices such as brass talismans, juxtaposed with gaudy advertising. The text in each work expresses the artist’s cynicism about notions of ‘Thai-ness’ promoted by the military government. Smile State 1 reads, ‘Thailand is number 1’ where the number 1 has been replaced by the Thai number 1. After the coup of 2014, Sangwachirapiban says, the government began a campaign of relentlessly jingoistic promotion of everything Thai. He describes it as propaganda without any supporting evidence, utterly removed from reality.
Smile State 2 may be read as ‘The Kingdom of Buddhism’. The work critiques the movement to redraft the constitution in 2015–2016 to make Buddhism Thailand’s official religion. In multicultural, multi-faith Thailand the artist believed this was contrary to the very principles of Buddhist belief, which encourage people to live harmoniously together.
The two texts, on the surface representing national pride, are intentionally incongruous with the materiality of the works, alluding to neon-lit nightlife and Buddhist talismans, or amulets received in exchange for offerings or donations to a temple. Each work represents a paradox, mirroring a society which oscillates between self-belief and self-delusion, confidence and cultural uncertainty, and, the artist says, ‘between credulity and reality’.