AUTHOR CV
Sarnt UTAMACHOTE (1992, Thailand) is a filmmaker and curator. He studied Industrial Design (BA) at Chulalongkorn University, and Cinema Studies and Literature Studies (BA) at the Freie University of Berlin. He currently produces/directs/edits independent short films and commercial videos with interdisciplinary approaches. He is a founder of un.thai.tled, a collective of Thai creatives based in Berlin. His last project was the exhibition “Beyond the kitchen: Stories of Thai Park”, where he curated and researched the archive of Thai migration in Berlin with Bezirksmuseum Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf.
SYNOPSIS
The touristic voyage gaze does not only create an object but also implies the desires and longings of the subject who stares and grasps. The westerners journey to know about oneself becomes a search for a counter-narrative where the new ‘orient’ is believed to provide the answer to lost origins and a shelter from problems. Many do not recognize the lifestyles of non-western persons, who do not submit to western standards with regard to fashion, self-narratives and occupied space. Many expect non-western persons to be passive and modest, available to offer them care and a sense of belonging. With the neocolonial structures such as global extractivism, backpacking-tourists, international corporates, I aim let this video remind audiences of their possible participations in any of these. I want to convey to audiences the uncanniness of these relationships; as if they were orphaned and were to be adopted by the indigenous ‘mother entities’
