The Microplastic Fantastic: an essay for Shared Residence at the 2023 Thailand Biennale

December 2023, Chiang Rai, Thailand — Last month, I was really honoured to contribute to the artist, Poklong Anading and his Shared Residence project presented at the 2023 Thailand Biennale in Chiang Rai.

From Shared Residence:

Situated at the Chiang Rai Provincial Administrative Organisation (CRPAO) School’s train library, the project called for local artists to share their works that anyone can borrow for the duration of the exhibit. In return, the borrowers should leave something valuable for them.

In this multidisciplinary installation, Anading collaborated with Thai scientist Dr. Panate Manomaivibool and his research on microplastics. Also included were some of Anading’s ongoing works:

From Poklong Anading:

In his “anonymity” series, for example, various human subjects hold mirrors in front of their faces to reflect the blinding light of the sun back at the camera. These unrecognizable figures become legible only through the social and economic markers of their clothing and their surroundings. In another series titled “every water is an island,” Anading video-records the light reflected by water in reservoirs, waste treatment plants, and other bodies of water. He cups his partly opened hand over the lens to create a shifting aperture, as though to hold and sift the flow—meditating on how civilization is shaped by water and how water, in turn, is shaped by civilization.