Untitled (rice), 2014
Installation
One A4 document in Thai under Plexiglass sheet to be translated in language used while exhibited
Overall dimensions vary with size of room
Unique

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In his new work Untitled (rice), Pratchaya Phinthong investigates the political entangle- ments within Thai society that have brought about the current unstable situation in the country.The world’s largest rice exporter,Thailand is in the midst of a political and econo- mic crisis.Two opposing factions - one side dressed in red shirts and the other donning yel- low shirts - epitomise this predicament.The “yellow shirts”are an expression of the natio- nalistic Bangkok bourgeoisie, which supports the monarchy and the military ; the “red shirts” represent the peasantry and the rural society of the country, which supports the different populist regimes that have recently alternated in power.

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Swept to power in 2011 with the support of millions of rural votes, the populist Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra established in early 2013 the so-called ‘Rice Pledging Scheme’. Farmers where invited to consign their rice to government stockpiles in exchan- ge for a mortgage paper ensuring them full repayment within three months.Aimed at gai- ning the political support of the farmers, the scheme injected the agricultural economy with a consistent flow of cash. However, the recent steep decline in Thai rice prices due to the pressure of competitors on the global market, together with corruption within Shinawatra’s party, led to the government’s failure to raise enough funds for the continua- tion of the pledging scheme.The suspension of repayment to millions of farmers caused them to miss repayment on thier own debts and brought them out onto the streets in pro- test during late 2013 and early 2014.

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In response to these escalating events, Phinthong asked steirischer herbst to use its pro- duction budget to buy a rice mortgage from a farmer who was a participant in the pled- ging program, and who agreed that the mortgage would become an art piece exhibited during the 2014 festival in Graz. Presented as a two-sided framed object, the mortgage document is exhibited at a height precisely corresponding to the amount of rice repre- sented by the loan if it was piled onto the gallery floor.With the barest of means, Untitled (rice) thus evokes the complex political and economic processes affecting the lives of mil- lions of people in contemporary Thailand.