{"id":5148,"date":"2025-05-05T13:05:52","date_gmt":"2025-05-05T06:05:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinemaoasis.com\/?p=5148"},"modified":"2025-10-07T10:06:56","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T03:06:56","slug":"gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinemaoasis.com\/en\/gallery\/gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"GAZA"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\"\"<\/span>\u0e1b\u0e23\u0e30\u0e01\u0e32\u0e28\u0e02\u0e22\u0e32\u0e22\u0e40\u0e27\u0e25\u0e32\u0e41\u0e2a\u0e14\u0e07\u0e19\u0e34\u0e17\u0e23\u0e23\u0e28\u0e01\u0e32\u0e23 ‘\u0e01\u0e32\u0e0b\u0e48\u0e32’<\/div>\n
\u0e44\u0e1b\u0e08\u0e19\u0e16\u0e36\u0e07 ’14 \u0e01\u0e31\u0e19\u0e22\u0e32\u0e22\u0e19 2568′<\/div>\n
.<\/div>\n
\"\"<\/span>‘GAZA’ is extended to<\/div>\n
14 September 2025<\/div>\n
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Galerie Oasis <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

The City-Centre Art Space for Transdimensional Art<\/i><\/p>\n

proudly presents:<\/p>\n

G A Z A<\/b><\/h1>\n

.<\/p>\n

An art exhibition by<\/p>\n

Vasan Sitthiket<\/b>, Ing K<\/b> & Manit Sriwanichpoom<\/b><\/em><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

17 May \u2013 31 August 2028<\/p>\n

(Opening party Sat 17 May, 6 \u2013 9 pm.)<\/i><\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a limit, beyond which <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

it is unhealthy for mankind to conceal truth <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

in order not to offend <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

those whose minds are closed.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/span>\u2013 Sufi Master Haidar Gul<\/i> (Eng. translation Idries Shah)<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

C<\/b>ompelled 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\u2019s IN GOD WE BOMB \u2013 inscribed penis head of an American\/Israeli missile; a wall of hate poems from \u2018How I Became A Terrorist and Other Poems\u2019 by witch-hunted horror filmmaker Ing K; to photo-artist Manit Sriwanichpoom\u2019s \u2018Children of God\u2019 updating of Christian Boltanski\u2019s tribute to Jewish victims of the Nazi holocaust, there\u2019s sure to be something here to offend someone.  <\/span>In the face of so much human suffering and unambiguous evil, it is a risk they\u2019re willing to take to be able to live with themselves.   <\/span><\/p>\n

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**Special programme: \u2018No Other Land\u2019, 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. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Children of God, 2025<\/b><\/p>\n

Manit Sriwanichpoom<\/p>\n

How will artists commemorate the Israeli government\u2019s genocide in Palestine? In the past, French artist of Jewish descent Christian Boltanski (1944 \u2013 2021) created an altar to Jewish victims of Hitler\u2019s 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\u2019 attacks on Jewish settlers on Palestinian land and the Israeli government\u2019s overwhelmingly disproportionate response, which has obliterated civilians\u2019 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.  <\/span>As a photo-artist myself, I\u2019ve borrowed Boltanski\u2019s method and form to update his content to fit the present-day reality of world events. I\u2019ve replaced the black and white portraits of the Nazis\u2019 Jewish victims with colour photographs from today\u2019s online news: the faces of Gaza, of the children of Palestine injured and shellshocked by Israel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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GAZA :<\/b><\/p>\n

How I Became A Terrorist<\/b><\/p>\n

Ing K\u2019s artist statement<\/b><\/p>\n

There is no avoiding this fact: the never-ending unbearable tragedy of Palestine manifests the stark truth of the White Man\u2019s 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2019etat led by FM Phin Choonhavan, on the pretext that Pridi had a hand in the \u201cmysterious\u201d 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.  <\/span>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\u2019re more likely to be co-operative and obedient. After the coup, the Thai vote of no Israel in Palestine had to change to \u201cAbstain\u201d. Grandpa Chin said there were cheers in the room when that happened.<\/p>\n

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\u2014a clear insight into their simpleton\u2019s 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\u2019s arms in the numerous remakes of \u2018Ku Gum\u2019 (\u201cThe Karmic Pair\u201d).<\/p>\n

Grandpa Chin was not the only victim in our family of these events. His wife\u2019s 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

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\u2013the 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\u2019m 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\u2019s 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

30 April 2025, Bk<\/i><\/p>\n

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