When We Know, We Will Forget, 2015~2025

Variable dimensions; PVC pipes, water, and indeterminate organic matter

 

When Pratchaya Phinthong visited onestar press in Paris, he was developing a book project that we published immediately. The resulting artist’s book consists of blank pages, with identical Reuters press photographs on the front and back covers — an image used, at different times, to report on two separate earthquakes in two different countries. Inside, a single handmade gold leaf produced in Bangkok was inserted, its value precisely matching the cost of producing the book in France. This quiet yet precise gesture reflects Pratchaya’s ongoing interest in systems of value, the global circulation of images, and the tensions between visibility and invisibility.

 

At the same time, the artist noticed that the PVC pipes running through our studio — carrying the sound of flushing water from the building above — created a constant and intrusive noise. Rather than dismiss it, Pratchaya did what he often does: he listened closely to the overlooked, recognizing meaning in what others might ignore. He appropriated the sound of the flushing water as a physical component of his work — invisible, ambient, and shared. Ten years later, he gave this intervention a title: If We Know, We Will Forget.

 

Together, the book and the pipework form a typical Pratchaya constellation — where modest materials, everyday systems, and subtle interventions open up complex questions about authorship, context, and the fragile economy of meaning.