*miserychick is actually happy

You could say I’m having a relatively free schedule in Bangkok at the moment, so when a friend asked if I wanted to do some translation work for a Thai artist being interviewed, I didn’t really have to think much about it. It would involve a trip to Nakhonsawan (a few hours north of Bangkok) and hanging out with the film crew and the artist for a Saturday: a perfect non-everyday-thing to do and another place on earth to add to my list.

The production crew was from Channel News Asia based in Singapore. They were making a documentary series on Southeast Asian contemporary artists, four of them Thai. Vasan Sitthiket was one of them. I was the babelfish.

The filming location was at his studio space in Nakhonsawan, a province whose name is literally “City of Heaven”. We left Bangkok Friday night. Vasan came straight from the protest to meet the crew. He’s amongst the top leaders of the protesters. He designed the backdrop for the PAD’s stage at the Government House and have been at the protest since it started back in May. He rallies the crowd. He’s written over 200 poems and read them on stage.

My favorite type of people.

We talked about the protest almost the whole trip. I asked questions I’ve had in my head for a while (so what exactly IS the plan?, how is it going to end? what democracy? etc.) and laid down some of my skepticism. He tells me about the atmosphere at the protest, how all sorts of people come out and stay out to support the cause days after days, how everyone is helping each other, how the police keeps framing the protesters for bringing bombs, how it feels to be tear gassed.

We reached the City of Heaven at night, all I knew then is that it was dark and really far away in the country side, middle of middle of middle of nowhere. There was no cellphone signal (*gasp*) and the crickets were louder than anything I’ve heard before. In the morning, though, I woke by the sound of the birds and was surprised to find how lush and green it was around me. A shocking contrast from Bangkok. Had I come straight from Toronto, where it’s partly green, the contrast might not have been so great. But Bangkok is a true concrete jungle and all are manmade material, constantly dirty, and trees are choked by telephone wires. There in Nakhonsawan, nature seem to be making fun of manmade structures. The trees tower over the few buildings he had there, the grass takes over the ground, butterflies flutter around, and the birds made it clear that you’re in their territory. This was his work space.

When “this war” ends, he said, he’ll come back here to make art. If you ask me, I would just stay there—gimme a hammock and a can of bug spray—everybody else and the world can fuck all.

He told me he sold some paintings and bought the land about a decade ago. Then a while after, he sold another set of paintings and built the space, a large concrete warehouse with bare essentials, so that he could store all his oversize paintings that were taking up too much room at his family’s house. When it was first built, the local villagers thought it was a safehouse for a drug operation. Now they call it the artist’s house—the one and only.

Vasan paints, writes poems, performs, makes puppets, sculptures, videos, pottery, prints, and starts a political party. His style, as is his media, varies depending on what he wants to make. The one thread holding it all together is politics. He said in the interview that he’s interested in life and how we live together as a society, so by default his work always involve politics in one way or another. In a way, I think activism is his artistic medium. When asked if he is still as angry as he was twenty years ago, he answered with a broad smile that he’s even angrier now. The older, the angrier.

Part of the filming was to show him doing an oil painting. He started on a blank 2 meters square canvas and in about an hour or so, he filled it with a scene from the violence that erupted last week which one man’s leg was torn off (and many other injured). The police are always the dogs. Interestingly enough, he drew them first.

A couple years ago when I was at Fabrica, I spent my days reading art books and contemporary theories. I came to a conclusion that very few people in this world can survive solely on their uncompromising artistic vision, and that successful artists whom I admire have a force which drives them to create that is stronger than in ordinary people. It’s this force that makes them a little crazy, not fitting quite right, but they color the world for the rest of us. They’re born with this force and can’t become anything else. Vasan is one of them.

“… the crazy ones. the misfits. the rebels. the round pegs in the square holes…” (Kerouac)—like I said… my favorite type of people.

Posted on Tuesday, 21 October 2008 at 3:48 PDT