Connecting people through art 

We are glad to announce, in collaboration with the Jim Thompson Art Center, MO NUM EN TS, a solo exhibition by Chiang Mai-based artist Som Supaparinya, curated by Gridthiya Gaweewong.

This exhibition is presented as part of the Han Nefkens Foundation – Southeast Asian Video Art Production Grant 2024 In memory of Dinh Q. Lê, and in collaboration with Jim Thompson Art Center; Outpost Art Organisation, Vietnam; Museion, Italy; Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan; Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark; and Rockbund Art Museum, China.

Continuing her long-term research-based artistic practice into the entanglements between history, the environment, and political ideology, Som Supaparinya’s new body of work investigates how the destruction of nature is not merely a byproduct of “progress” but a direct consequence of ideological and discursive forces. These include propaganda disseminated by both the Free World and the Communist bloc, each seeking to legitimize large-scale development projects across the region.

In her newly commissioned video work, MO NUM EN TS (2025), Supaparinya examines the cultural dimensions of Cold War propaganda through media materials produced by the United States Information Service (USIS). Juxtaposing these archival images and sounds with contemporary landscapes in Thailand, the artist evokes what she calls a “post-propaganda era” inviting viewers to reflect on how Cold War ideologies persist within everyday life. Central to the work is the question of “symbols of progress” such as the Bhumibol and Pak Mun Dams—structures that, despite their environmental costs and inefficiency in power production, continue to stand as monuments to the ideology of development.

This new commission will be shown alongside a reworked version of her earlier installation, Paradise of the Blind (2016/2025), part of her ongoing Banned Book Project, which addresses censorship across Asia and Oceania. By presenting both banned and “non-banned” books together, Supaparinya exposes how mechanisms of control operate not only through prohibition but also through selective permission, revealing how power shapes knowledge and public understanding under the guise of freedom.

Together, these works create a space for audiences to reflect on the layers of power, knowledge, and invisibility within history, particularly the ways in which ideology, memory, and the landscape of nature intertwine and continue to echo in the present.