Group Exhibition Phuket, Thailand
The theme of Thailand Biennale, Phuket 2025, "Eternal [Kalpa]”, points to the enduring connection between humans and nature across different times. The biennale will address the many challenges of our coexistence with others, made urgent by failings of technology, ecology and economy.
The image of the sun setting off Promthep Cape stands for the rhythms that bind this earth, in both its everyday life and its more profound, cosmic journey – a metaphor for constant, renewable love. In popular art forms like song and poetry, nature often represents timelessness and resilience. However, the threats posed by our technology, warfare and industrial pollution have underscored the fragility of the natural world and its potential destruction by human activities.
The historical interpretation of art and love may need revision, as human-centric thinking drives the exploitation of nature and ignores the inherent value of all living beings. In an age of anxiety borne of this self-centered perspective, even time itself has become suspect and unreliable. The history of Phuket opens a space for contemplation on the passage of time and the coexistence of various timescales, a sanctuary for introspection in a world riven by conflict, competition, soaring inequality and intercultural tension.
To foster sustainability and empathy, it is crucial to acknowledge and honour the many rhythms of life – the diversity of time – the breeding cycle of turtles and birds, the delicate culture of coral reefs, the slow growth of trees and rocks. Could the understanding of different temporalities in nature lead to greater compassion and appreciation for the world, counteracting humanity’s acquisitive and exploitative tendencies?
It is vital that we recognize and respect the varied and variable tempos of human interaction as well. The priority given to progress and a narrow, linear view of history has made it harder to share time, entrenching historical conflicts and misunderstandings. To do justice to the complexity of coexistence, we must embrace multiple temporalities and interdependent rhythms, in the spaces and ecologies we share. It is only with respect for the sacred dimensions of nature and the diversity of time that a truly planetary love can be realised.
Robert Zhao, Where the Caterpillar Ends
Where the Caterpillar Ends opens a window onto the relatively quiet island of Ko Lon, just a few kilometres off Phuket's southern coast, where Zhao, guided by an old local resident, searches for a missing waterfall. The waterfall is not simply hidden -- it is disappearing, its decline shaped by the island's long history of land use, from terraced rice fields to rubber plantations. Instead of focusing on the hustle and bustle of human activity and real estate development, Zhao foregrounds an abandoned hotel, built in the early 2000s, now overtaken by forest growth Once a thriving luxury destination, the island now hosts fewer than ten residents, with most homes abandoned or left to nature's reclamation. Zhao also observed an ageing rubber plantation, its trees over forty years old, now transformed into a full-fledged forest.
Melati Suryodarmo, ANCESCAPE
Without a script of dialogue, ANCESCAPE becomes a communion beyond the reach of words, using the body as a porous material bridging past and present, self and world. The work moves toward an absurdity, a condition where reality is recogniesd for what it truly is: raw, harsh, and distant. In each gesture and act of voicing in this durational performance work, Suryodarmo transforms her body to invoke the act of living. The body here is not merely a repository of memory, but a metaboliser of collective grief at the cellular level. With every exhale, we are asked what we can bear to let go. This physical and mental journey rests onthe fragile interdependence of identity, history, and the body's power to speak where words fall short.
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