My interest in the Prawet area begins with its residential spaces, the homes of people who have lived here for a long time, many of them are the living spaces of migrant workers who have come to Bangkok to work. As I walked through the neighborhood, I noticed the vegetables and plants that people try to grow along their fences, beside walls pressed tightly against the footpath, and in doorways where containers are reused as makeshift pots, paint buckets, leftover materials, or even heavy concrete planters.
        The conversations I had with people living there reminded me of rural migration into the city. I heard phrases like, “Back home we still have kitchen gardens to eat from; we have land to grow rice. Back home we never starve,” or the line, “Life in the countryside doesn’t lead to starvation” (from Dr. Nipon Poapongsakorn’s article on the transformation of rural socio-economic structures and migration). These words made me wonder: Does having land in the countryside truly guarantee survival? And what about the abandoned houses left behind after elderly residents pass away, when their children have already moved elsewhere? These moments made me think about the spaces as people relocate to cities.
      The small, limited pockets of space in which people now live. The kitchen-garden vegetables grown in pots by migrant workers brought these questions back to me again. Can land really sustain rural lives the way people imagine? Where did the idea of “never starving in the countryside” originate? And what brought into people’s lives when migrating to urban area. The idea of space and home around people is the main thought that comes to my mind.
        As I turned toward the urban landscape, I also saw empty overgrown lots where plants reclaimed abandoned ground. I saw potted trees being nurtured in tiny corners of cramped housing. And I saw vast, unused land scattered throughout the city. From the idea of having land in the countryside to the constrained spaces of Bangkok, I wondered how people keep living through these small acts of cultivation.
       This project begins with exploring the vegetables grown in pots around homes in the Prawet area, within the widest radius from my starting point that I can reach. It also includes conversations with people in the community, what their planting methods reveal, and what kinds of stories or data these encounters will lead me to.A pot of vegetables becomes a window into people’s lives. One auntie told me that her nang-lak plant has been growing for ten years. Whenever she cooks, she simply takes a cutting and sticks it back into the soil, and it keeps growing. Another neighbor said she plants vegetables because “there’s not much around here.” Some plants survive, some don’t, but she keeps feeding them crushed eggshells and energy drinks. Uncle Nuam told me he has been growing a medicinal plant for twenty years. Auntie Tuy, who keeps many cats, said her date palm came from Surat Thani, her husband’s hometown, because in Suphanburi, her own hometown, they never had it.
       People have moved from the spacious open land of rural areas to Bangkok for many different reasons. For me, this project is about space, about the way people turn unstable ground in Bangkok into home. Rented rooms, informal land, and plots always at risk of eviction. Beginning from the history of laborers who once dug canals and received land as payment, I see a long lineage of movement, settlement, and fragility. To me, every plants in a pot, every vegetables being grown for food, is an act of building a home that can be moved at any moment.

Exhibited  In ”Melting Map” 

CURATED BY PATTICHA THITITHAMMAPORN

At BACC pop up, MunMun Srinakarin

at Seacon Square Srinakarin, Bangkok. Thailand.

PHOTO SIMPLE OF VIDEO WORK :

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INSTALLATION VIEW PHOTO

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