Korakrit Arunanondchai & Alex Gvojic: PRAY
Canal Projects, New York.
September 29 – December 17, 2022
Each of the videos is narrated by the voice of the “ghost” that speaks for dead spirits, political regimes, family members, and animals, all entwined together and transforming into one another. Artist-made sculptures of spirit houses are installed as thresholds between spirit and flesh, creation and decreation.
Organized around sequences of songs, Songs for dying focuses on the rituals of death and the process of decomposition, which more than enunciating a final end create the possibility of continuous transformation. In Songs for dying, departing from the loss of his grandfather, the artist unfolds stories that carry the idea of self into the space of the unknowable. Ghosts, shamans, and a dying sea turtle are not only metaphors but also the mediums through which becoming and decomposition must pass through.
In the video, archival footage of the 1948 South Korean Jeju Massacre is contrasted with the most recent anti-government protests in Thailand. All these events tie together with the story of American democracy and how after World War II, neoliberal regimes have been forced upon different countries of the world.