Wednesday 15 September 2010

reaction paper 1: bacc

ini ceritanya adalah reaction paper gue buat kelas kebudayaan thailand, setelah main-main ke bangkok art and culture centre minggu lalu. gue mengikuti anjuran sang dosen untuk mengerjakan tugasnya dengan "fairly large font", "double-spaced", dan "one page only unless you include pictures". tadinya gue kira, dengan font times new roman ukuran 14, dua spasi, dan dua halaman penuh (karena pake dua foto), gue belum memberikan reaksi yang cukup. apalagi setelah ngeliat reaction paper-nya ken, yang satu halaman tapi spasinya tidak ganda dan hurufnya kecil. eh ternyata ada aja yang tugasnya cuma satu lembar kertas, dan setengah halamannya habis sama satu foto gede... hahaha.

baiklah, selamat menikmati...

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Bangkok Art and Cultural Centre has become an impressive home for contemporary artworks of Thai artists since 2005. The artworks, varies from paintings to installation variable, spread on about 3.000 square meters of gallery space on three floors. There is also an extra of 1.000 square meters more in various areas of the floor L to floor 5. Almost all of the artworks being exhibited, as I visited the Centre last Wednesday (8/9), are made in 2010.

From all the artworks seen, I adored this painting presented in an exhibition by Moving Thailand Forward at the first floor. It is titled “Romparungsangsanpratedthai”, made by Pracha Yindee in 2010.


The focal point is the yellow-coloured relief with the shape of Thailand, decorated with the national flag, visualisation of dripping blood, and bandages, on the top of a cart being pushed by black figures. It has two background colour; blue at the top and red at the bottom. There is a Buddha symbol on the top of the relief, while at the bottom there are various figures of people pushing the cart where the relief is placed. Its strength is in the patriotic spirit of “Moving Thailand Forward”.

As a whole, I feel that it is the artwork with the strongest will which presented in the exhibition. I think that the artwork shows a determination from Thai people to bring the country to a new level of development despite its current sufferings. The spirit itself can be recognised from many ways, for example from how the figures are trying to push the cart forward. The figures are portrayed faceless, which, in my opinion, means that their identities do not matter because they share the same goal after all. The only figure with visual identification found is the figure that seems to give the command to the whole crowd, which has the face of the current Thailand Prime Minister. Consequently, it shows how the figures trust that the wounded relief (read: Thailand) will be recovering at the same time it is moving forward. In addition, the Buddha symbol identifies not only the major religion, but also the foundation of much local wisdoms that greatly inspires the nation.

Finally, being a foreigner myself, I am greatly impressed on how the artist managed to capture the hurtful condition of a nation yet the people are not giving up to such obstacles. However, its location was not the most strategic exhibition spot, causing not so many people to come and visit the display of such artwork.

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