untitled 2014-2016 (curry for the soul of the forgotten) (three)

Rirkrit Tiravanija’s practice, with its emphasis on the convivial potential of non-object-based processes, finds a natural expression in the social setting of cooking and eating. Frequently performative, his works create new connections based on hospitality and reciprocity.

untitled 2014-2016 (curry for the soul of the forgotten) (three) testifies to the artist’s engagement with his home country Thailand and its culinary and popular traditions. For this purpose, in 1998 he founded The Land near Chiang Mai, a project initiated as an open space, in close connection with local groups, combining art and agriculture with models of cohabitation. Documenting a gathering on The Land, the slowly unfolding video revolves around the cooking and consumption of Thai curry. The rice offered to the group of people gathering around the artist is harvested from the two fields cultivated by The Land and shared by the participants’ families.

The bronze replica of the vessel in which the curry was prepared on an open fire is displayed in the gallery. The consumption of food that the video documents takes place in silence, it is a moment of memorialization and meditation. Although no one is explicitly referenced, the curry ritual is dedicated to the soul of the forgotten. Considering that in 2014 a military coup in Thailand ousted an elected government for the second time in a decade, citing the need to restore order in the face of street demonstrations, it is possible to assume that the communal meal is performed in solidarity with the fallen dissidents and protesters.

The new military powers also imposed martial law and censorship. The solemn absence of speech in the film, in contrast to the informal setup and atmosphere, holds the group together, generating focus, intimacy, and kinship. The work addresses a multiplicity of times and places: the immediacy of the gallery space, where the pot is presented as a relic in front of the moving images, and the bearing witness to the multiple experiences recounted or otherwise implicated in the video.

(Text written by TBA21 and used as wall label in the exhibition "Abundant Futures", C3A, Córdoba, 2022)