Friends of Petch by Pratchaya Phinthong

A site specific installation set in the house and coconut plantation of Lung Bao, a popular Yao Noi resident famous for his sweet young coconuts.

‎Pratchaya Phinthong takes viewers on a journey beckoning them to reconsider the own points of view. By composing together different elements from everyday life, the often overlooked and taken for granted become imbued with personal, social and cultural connotations far beyond its simplistic appearance. “Friends of Petch” is a site specific installation that brings together the outtakes of a student-made film about a new student making friends in a new school. The relationship between the foreign and the local is played out on a television screen, which was selected by Lung Bao, a local coconut plantation owner who before this, had no notion of what a television was although he has often been the subject of many television interviews. With his work the artist has not only broken the barrier between subject and content but has also broken away many preconceived notions of how one can choose to see things.

Pratchaya Phinthong is an artist, he resides in Bangkok but is originally from the Northeast of Thailand. His work is currently being exhibited as part of the The Ungovernables show in at the New Museum in New York City.  Phinthong studied at Bangkok’s Silpakorn University and later Frankfurt’s Stadelschule he is one of the next generation of Thailand’s contemporary artists. His site specific installation at last year’s Jim Thompson Art on Farm and his community piece with motorcycles at the BACC in Bangkok are 2 notable works.