GAZA

Galerie Oasis

The City-Centre Art Space for Transdimensional Art

proudly presents:

G A Z A

An art exhibition by

Vasan Sitthiket, Ing K & Manit Sriwanichpoom

17 May – 31 August 2028

(Opening party Sat 17 May, 6 – 9 pm.)

“There is a limit, beyond which

it is unhealthy for mankind to conceal truth

in order not to offend

those whose minds are closed.”

– Sufi Master Haidar Gul (Eng. translation Idries Shah)

Compelled by the same horror upon witnessing the never-ending nightmare in Palestine, a trio of very different Thai artists respond to the Gaza genocide in their own way. From painter Vasan Sitthiket’s IN GOD WE BOMB – inscribed penis head of an American/Israeli missile; a wall of hate poems from ‘How I Became A Terrorist and Other Poems’ by witch-hunted horror filmmaker Ing K; to photo-artist Manit Sriwanichpoom’s ‘Children of God’ updating of Christian Boltanski’s tribute to Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust, there’s sure to be something here to offend someone. In the face of so much human suffering and unambiguous evil, it is a risk they’re willing to take to be able to live with themselves.

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**Special programme: ‘No Other Land’, the Oscar-winning documentary by co-directors Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham & Rachel Szor of Palestine and Israel will be screening at Cinema Oasis throughout the exhibition period.

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Anti War Statement

“I love peace and want to see the world live in peace and harmony. I dislike oppression, exploitation, and discrimination based on race or ethnicity. Everyone is born to coexist on this planet, and all resources should be shared. We should collectively take care of our common resources for sustainability. This world exists for all of us who are temporary inhabitants. Life is short, and exploitation and oppression are evils that we all must resist. We must take action in every form to stop it!

Wars for plundering resources and occupying territories are the greatest evil. Humans must empathize with the suffering and poverty of their fellow beings. They must be aware of love, compassion, and kindness towards each other. Let’s work together to create peace and harmony in this world!!!

Stop wars and killings!! Stop creating deadly weapons that harm people! No nation is superior to another, and no god is better than another!!! Every life has value, and everyone is important. We should work together, share, and live on a planet with peace, equality, and justice!”

Vasan Sitthiket

22 April 2025

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Children of God, 2025

Manit Sriwanichpoom

How will artists commemorate the Israeli government’s genocide in Palestine? In the past, French artist of Jewish descent Christian Boltanski (1944 – 2021) created an altar to Jewish victims of Hitler’s Nazi death camps with old black and white photographic portraits of the victims, hung in a row, each face spotlit by its own little lamp. Simple and solemn, full of terror and grief, Boltanski made this work to show his opposition to war. It is a pity the artist passed away before the October 7, 2023 Hamas’ attacks on Jewish settlers on Palestinian land and the Israeli government’s overwhelmingly disproportionate response, which has obliterated civilians’ homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches, killing so far over 50,000 people including more than 13, 000 children in a contemporary campaign of genocide which shows no sign of ending. As a photo-artist myself, I’ve borrowed Boltanski’s method and form to update his content to fit the present-day reality of world events. I’ve replaced the black and white portraits of the Nazis’ Jewish victims with colour photographs from today’s online news: the faces of Gaza, of the children of Palestine injured and shellshocked by Israel’s incessant bombing. In the foreground is a pile of anonymous old clothes. This is my attempt to bear witness to modern day genocide, as perpetrated by a race of people who had themselves been victims of genocide.

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GAZA :

How I Became A Terrorist

Ing K’s artist statement

There is no avoiding this fact: the never-ending unbearable tragedy of Palestine manifests the stark truth of the White Man’s world view, that white people can do no wrong and brown lives do not matter. Then there is the extraordinary connectivity of everything, with has led me to conclude that Siam will never be free until Palestine is free.

My maternal grandfather Chin was the Thai UN ambassador on the Palestine Committee. World War 2 had just ended and the newborn United Nations was still at Lake Success in New York state. Both Grandpa Chin and his boss PM Pridi Banomyong had been leaders of Free Thai resistance fighting alongside the Allies in the war, but they were independent thinkers. They voted against the founding of the nation of Israel in Palestine. Not long after, on 8 November 1947 the US backed a military coup d’etat led by FM Phin Choonhavan, on the pretext that Pridi had a hand in the “mysterious” death of King Ananda (by his own gun while alone in his bedroom on 9 June 1946). The fascist leaders who had collaborated with the Japanese, easily sprung from war crime prison in Japan, were brought back to rule over Thailand. Evidently the US preferred them as proxies/partners in the dawning Cold War against communism. People who sold out to Japan would have no problem selling out to the US; they’re more likely to be co-operative and obedient. After the coup, the Thai vote of no Israel in Palestine had to change to “Abstain”. Grandpa Chin said there were cheers in the room when that happened.

Imagine that France, after the war, exiled General De Gaulle and brought the Vichy Nazi collaborators back to power, to rule over and define what is French: social norms, patriotism, music, cinema, education. In our case the Japanese and American collaborators have written the history textbooks for generations of Thai children. The fascists, who once made it compulsory for people to wear Western hats and proper shoes just like white people and kiss their wives before leaving home for work—a clear insight into their simpleton’s awe of the West, laid down the definition, the template, of what it is to be Thai. To this day no one seems to find it strange or obscene that the only depiction of Free Thai resistance in all of Thai cinema and TV soap is the villain who radios the Allies to drop the bomb that kills the hero, handsome Japanese soldier Kobori, who dies in his sobbing pregnant Thai wife’s arms in the numerous remakes of ‘Ku Gum’ (“The Karmic Pair”).

Grandpa Chin was not the only victim in our family of these events. His wife’s uncle, a royal chamberlain, was executed by firing squad for helping Pridi kill King Ananda. There is no doubt in my mind of the direct link between the founding of Israel and these hideous tragedies that have defined, cursed and confounded us, as America seized control of our homeland as their base for their war in Indochina. This remains true to this day, not just in politics, media and academia but everything else, including the arts where colonially approved gatekeepers and colonially founded institutions dictate to us the colonially approved narrative for Thai art and film, and blacklist those that contradict their version of reality.

The fact that almost 300 UN relief workers have been killed in this genocide obviously affects me, since once upon a time I worked with war refugees for UNHCR. Then a recent TV interview with a witch-hunted Palestinian history professor brought Gaza even closer home. Her experiences–the slander and blacklisting, the online abuse, the threats, totally mirrored my own as a banned and blacklisted Thai filmmaker and witness to history. Grandpa Chin bore witness and defended Pridi; he died a leper. That poor Palestinian history professor is a leper. I’m a leper for making the only film on the Thai Southern Unrest and for recording Bangkok Shutdown. You can get upset, scream and write hate poems, but this is what happens. That’s just how it goes when you displease the Master by sticking to the facts of your own history, that you are experiencing and seeing daily with your own eyes.

30 April 2025, Bk

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