Maiiam contemporary art museum

ChiangMai THAILAND

'Patani Semasa' in Chiang Mai explores the complexities and agonies of the ongoing conflict in Thailand's troubled South.

Patani SEMASA

A photograph by Mumadsoray Deng, one of the artists in the Patani Semasa exhibition.

Southern discomfort, by those who live it

'Patani Semasa' in Chiang Mai explores the complexities and agonies of the ongoing conflict in Thailand's troubled South

WRITER: KONG RITHDEE

"Photography exploited the death of my people, my neighbours. I grew up seeing the media selling the pictures of violence and death in my hometown."

His voice severe and impassioned, Mumadsoray spoke at the opening of "Patani Semasa" at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum in Chiang Mai last month, and his short speech implied the complex relationship between art, artmaking and reality in the inexorable far South -- as well as between the troubled peninsula and its perception by the rest of the country.

One of the largest assemblies of contemporary artists from the region, the Patani Semasa (or Contemporary Patani) features 27 artists, Muslim and Buddhist, many females, most of them from the southernmost provinces with an addition of Bangkok-based talents whose works touch on the stories of conflict and violence in the region. From the mundane to the intense, the abstract to the literal: there are paintings of veiled women and Malay village life; replicas of guns used by security personnel, set up like a shooting gallery; video art meditating on the southern woes; a Kaaba-like object and mock-up Islamic tombstones analogising the Tak Bai deaths; and paintings of faceless Muslim brides, in faded white gowns, forlorn and chilling as if eternally waiting for their groom.

The centrepiece at the entrance of the high-ceiling gallery is a giant white cloth, hoisted like a sail and minutely embroidered with English and Malay verses, the white-on-white lettering almost swallowed by the texture of the fabric. The poem is by Narathiwat poet Zakariya Amataya and the concept is by one of the show's curators Gridthiya Gaweewong. To read the text, you have to stand really close to the piece.

"Like what happens down there, you have to get up close to really see what it is about," said Gridthiya.

And there are, of course, photographs by Mumadsoray, the photographer who distrusted photography, at least until he discovered that he could say what he wanted through the lens.

"My house is very close to Krue Se Mosque," said Mumadsoray, referring to the historic mosque in Pattani province and the scene of a military siege in April 2004 that ended with the deaths of over 30 people. "I think my photos can tell other stories besides what we always see -- stories of unrest and troublemakers running around the South."

Works by Suhaidee Satta, showing guns used by security forces, and charcoal drawings at the back by Anis Nagasevi.

"But if you walk around with a camera in the far South, you have to be careful too," he added, half-jokingly. "Sometimes the soldiers asked me what I was shooting or why I shot it. They won't leave me in peace when I want to take my pictures."

As Patani Semasa sees it, the contemporary art in the Deep South is forged by two fires, one menacing, the other benign. First, many of the artists featured in the show grew up experiencing first-hand the deadly turmoil that has plagued the region since January 2004 and that has claimed nearly 7,000 lives so far.

At the same time, contemporary art-making activities in the southernmost provinces began in earnest, as argued by the curators, with the founding of the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani Campus, in 2000, or four years before this round of unrest broke out. Many of the artists in the show are lecturers or students of the faculty. Pichet Piaklin, whose abstract painting is one of the first pieces you'll see upon entering the exhibition, was one of the first lecturers of the faculty. The idea of founding an art school in Pattani, he said, was against the odds, with internal and external resistance, bureaucratic delays and a mildly disapproving attitude of some locals.

At the opening, Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh, another key figure of the southern art scene, spoke emotionally about how artists in the South felt marginalised by lack of public interest as well as the forces of official control, especially from state officers who cast their eyes on those who speak up -- through art or otherwise. Meanwhile Islamic tradition, which characterises the social foundation of the region, adds another layer of influence, both as a creative catalyst and spiritual concern.

A still from video work by I-Na Phuyuthanon.

"The religious conservatives used to caution our means of expression, but not so much anymore," said Jehabdulloh, referring to a branch of Islamic tradition that forbids portraits and figurative art. "The watchfulness comes more from the authorities."

While the South is more than just its bad news, the majority of art pieces at Patani Semasa comment upon the outbreak of violence and the strong-fistedness of the military responses. Ranging from melancholic to eerie, from ironic to pensive, the artworks make up a powerful chamber of emotion, at once sweeping in their view of history and intimate in their remembering of common people.

Suhaidee Satta's work, for instance, builds upon his research of the firearms used by the soldiers in the area. He then made several copies of those guns from coconut fibre, and visitors are invited to walk into the space sandwiched by those weapons that point at them. Beyond the guns, charcoal drawings by Anis Nagasevi depicting members of a family who lost their loved ones in the conflict, provide a soulful backdrop. The arranging of these two works alone sums up the feelings -- fear, weariness, bitterness -- of the locals.

A conceptual work by Jehabdulloh comprises 89 white tombstones, signifying the 89 deaths at Tak Bai in 2004. The piece was originally shown on site in the South -- and ordered to be removed later. At MAIIAM, it is safely installed indoors, next to Jakkai Siributr's walk-in black cube, vaguely resembling the Kaaba, inside which that artist has arranged flimsy traditional shirts embroidered with jawi script -- again to remember the death of young men at Tak Bai.

A photograph by Ampannee Satoh.

The exhibition features a large number of female artists, and their sensibilities are more melancholic, more refined: Ampannee Satoh's black-and-white photographs of veiled women; Keeta Isran's fabric prints of women's faces overlaid by newspaper articles; I-Na Phuyuthanon's video work, a sublime interplay of light, figures and sound; Kameelah I-Lala's paintings of the faceless brides whose grooms were killed in the conflict, and many more.

The exhibition title Patani Semasa comes with the subhead, "An exhibition on art and culture from the Golden Peninsula". The implication is clear: the show avoids the term "Deep South" and instead looks beyond the official historiography to view the region as more inclusive and less confined by the state-sanctioned narrative -- thus Patani, the historic name of the region. The show even features a Malaysian artist Roslisham Ismail; his vibrant work is on the culinary legacy of Langkasuka, an ancient empire of the southern peninsula that preceded Patani and Siam.

Showing a large collection of southern art in Chiang Mai, the capital of the North, compounds a new dimension to the exhibition.

"The distance means the artist can speak freely through their work," said Gridthiya, who curated the show with Kasamaponn Saengsuratham, Kittima Chareeprasit and Ekkalak Napthuesuk. "The show can also serve as a comparative study between the South and the North of Thailand."

A painting by Jehabdulloh Jehsorhoh.

At the launch event for Patani Semasa last month, a group of historians and political scientists featured on a panel to provide a wider context to the show. One of the key points was that Chiang Mai was once the centre of the Lanna Empire before it became a part of Siam; likewise the South, which had its own succession of rulers and kingdoms before the early 19th century. The fates of the two regions, however, couldn't be more different these days, they concluded.

But while art means reflection, meditation and even resistance, it also offers glimpses of hope in the midst of uncertainty.

"The South is characterised by differences," said Pichet, one of the artists. "But art can transcend them and speak of something higher."

"Patani Semasa" is on view at MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Chiang Mai, until Feb 2018.