EXHIBITION

NAWIN NUTONG

THE IMMORTALS ARE QUITE BUSY THESE DAYS

30 January–21 March 2021

A child walked in and asked the Tree Council about history.
All the trees in the council just looked at each other, they didn’t answer the boy’s question.
Then, they pointed to two trees from a game, bustling about to return to their game world.
The child then followed the two trees.

Whilst they traveled to the virtual world.
Along the way, the boy saw questions on history.
He was well aware that the questions were not complete sentences.
Yet, the frequency of ambiguity seemed clearer in the messy space.

The boy stopped following the two trees.

And just like that, the expedition began!

THE IMMORTALS ARE QUITE BUSY THESE DAYS represents Nawin Nuthong’s most significant endeavor to disambiguate ideas of the “Threshold” since his conceptualization and engagement with the notion thus far. Such a Threshold, as postulated by Nawin, exists as a boundary demarcating the liminal space between experiences, thought, ideologies, histories, and narratives where these various fields coalesce. The Threshold further represents a limit that can be surpassed through ardent undertakings, and their coordinates of access are marked by “Threshold Guardians” that simultaneously serve as barriers to entry. Within the exhibition, the computer game serves as metaphor, illustration, and tool for the re-inscription of the operating mechanics of the human condition of existence. In his re-worlding of lived experience within the digital realm of the hyperreal, Nawin reveals reality as one mired by the weight of history and characterized by the simultaneous subversion and diminishment of its symbolic value simply by its writing. (An Essay on the Margins by John Tung)

DOCUMENT

AN ESSAY ON THE MARGINS BY JOHN TUNG

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SELECTED WORKS

Nawin Nuthong, Threshold cards, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Threshold cards, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Tree Council, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Tree Council, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Upside down journey, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Upside down journey, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, To hook a coelacanth!, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, To hook a coelacanth!, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Book Factory Magic Forest, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Book Factory Magic Forest, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Myrhh, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Myrhh, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Frankincense, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Frankincense, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Digsite of a tree, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Digsite of a tree, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Dig for wat, 2021

Nawin Nuthong, Dig for wat, 2021

VIDEO

ARTIST

Nawin Nuthong (2024). Photo: Pisinee Khaosamai

NAWIN NUTONG

Born in 1993, Bangkok, TH Lives and works in Bangkok

Nawin Nuthong is a contemporary artist and curator exploring the connections between history and cultural media through a wide range of mediums. Melding myths and legends with pop-cultural references from video games, comics, and film, he examines the role technology has to play in reconfiguring the learning and understanding of history.

 

Nuthong graduated with a major in Film Studies and Digital Media from King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang. Since 2024, his works have been exhibited in numerous venues, including fffluid apparatus: At the Intersection of the Human, the Natural (2024) at Rumah Tangsi in Kuala Lumpur and Liquidscape: Southeast Asia Today(2024) at Art Maebashi in Maebashi. Nuthong was also a participating artist in the Bangkok Art Biennale 2022, CHAOS: CALM. His video work, 2 sec before revolution in a leaf (2023), was selected by the SAM S.E.A . Focus Art Fund 2024 to become part of the Singapore Art Museum collection. At BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY, his exhibitions include THE IMMORTALS ARE QUITE BUSY THESE DAYS (2020), A Room, Where They Are COEVALs [Precise at a Dig Site Door] ( 2 02 1 ) , Heaven Crumbles: The Marvellous Misadventures of Sudsakorn ( 2 02 1 ) , and his recent second solo exhibition, Fountain Foundation, opening in January 2025.