My Grandpa’s Route Has Been Forever Blocked - Sutthirat Supaparinya

It was their hometown, their work and their life. My maternal grandfather was chief manager for the timber transport that moved teakwood from Chiang Mai to Bangkok. His life was mysterious to us, since it took him more than 3 months to complete his job. It was dangerous work as he had to handle elephants and heavy logs, keep an eye out for bandits and navigate between crags and cliffs. I followed my grandfather’s route, but only upstream from the Bhumibol Dam in the Tak, Lamphun and Chiang Mai provinces. The riverscape of his time and mine are completely different having changed after the Bhumibol Dam was built in 1958, the river was blocked and the transportation route was developed further. . Journeys along the Ping River as well as a boat trip helped me to understand what my grandfather experienced in the past; at the same time I could observe other issues that have arisen in my time. In this installation are 2 channel videos I captured during my trip. The right one is a documentary about the cruise on the lake above Bhumibol Dam where the previous Ping River was expanded to become a huge lake. Today many former villages and teak forests are underwater in this area. The left video shows 13 weirs, floodgates and the dam itself, sequentially from the first weir near the origin of the river to the Bhumibol Dam.

Curated by: Apisak Sonjod

Sutthirat Supaparinya






is a video and installation artist. Born in 1973, she lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand. After earning a BFA in Painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at Chiang Mai University, she received a Postgraduate degree in Media Arts at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig, Germany. Her international exhibitions include How Physical (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography 2012) Koganecho Bazaar 2011, Return Ticket Thailand-Germany (Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, 2010), and The View from Elsewhere (Queensland Art Gallery, 2009). With assistance from an Asian Cultural Council fellowship in 2011, she resided in New York researching the visual arts and experimental films. www.atelierorange.info.