Today will take care of tomorrow

2022 - Film & Video (Film & Video)

40:00 minutes

Pratchaya Phinthong


Pratchaya Phinthong’s work has explored the mineral and karmic economies of Laos, a country that shares language, beliefs, and a long border with his own native region of Isaan (Northeast Thailand). The most bombed nation on earth, Laos still bears the physical and mental scars of the U. S. military’s epic aerial offensive, launched largely from bases in Isaan, during the Second Indochina War. Between 1964 and 1973 the US dropped an estimated 250 million cluster bombs on Laos. As much as 30% of them remain there in the ground, waiting to explode, despite sustained transnational efforts to clear them. The video work, Today will take care of tomorrow , borrows its title from a poem by Paul Malimba about the country’s beautiful but dangerous landscape. The subtly defamiliarizing gaze of an infra-red camera seeks out trees that have absorbed shrapnel from this indiscriminate violence, around the ruins of an old Buddhist temple half-destroyed by the bombing. Not only have the trees assimilated the foreign matter and thrived despite their wounds, but years later the embedded metals act like accidental amulets, destroying the blades of illegal loggers who must then leave these areas alone. As if protected by an invisible force, the forest has absorbed one violence, which shields it against another. That one time should take care of another may seem like wishful thinking, but this is no personification. The aphorism points to circulations that are both more substantial and more than human. Pratchaya exercises his trademark poetics of conversion and substitution in an ongoing collaboration with inhabitants of Napia Village, near the prehistoric Plain of Jars in Laos’s central Xiangkhoang Plateau. Here, the mineral surplus of global conflict is melted down in small family-run foundries and reborn as decorative or functional domestic objects.


Pratchaya Phintong’s works often arise from the confrontation between different social, economic, or geographical systems. They are the result of a dialogue, and bring all their poetic forces from an almost invisible artistic gesture. From his travels, the artists collects objects, materials, and stories that he assembles in his work. He often looks at gathering forms and matters that are opposite but that complete and correspond to one another.


Colors:



Related works sharing similar palette

Six Impressionists you should know
© » ROYAL ACADEMY

Six Impressionists you should know | Article | Royal Academy of Arts Caption toggle button Six Impressionists you should know Published on 19 January 2024 Move over, Monet! Here are six Impressionists we think deserve the spotlight...

SF IndieFest Is a Valentine to Movies and Movie Lovers
© » KQED

SF IndieFest Is a Valentine to Movies and Movie Lovers | KQED Skip to Nav Skip to Main Skip to Footer upper waypoint The Do List SF IndieFest Is a Valentine to Movies and Movie Lovers Michael Fox Feb 8 Save Article Save Article Failed to save article Please try again Email Steve Zahn in the SF IndieFest opening night film, 'LaRoy,' playing Feb...

Van Gogh’s 'Starry Night over the Rhône' will return for the first time to the city where it was painted
© » THEARTNEWSPER

Van Gogh’s 'Starry Night over the Rhône' will return for the first time to the city where it was painted Art market Museums & heritage Exhibitions Books Podcasts Columns Technology Adventures with Van Gogh Search Search Adventures with Van Gogh blog Van Gogh’s 'Starry Night over the Rhône' will return for the first time to the city where it was painted But did Vincent really wear a hat fringed with candles when he was working? Martin Bailey 8 December 2023 Share Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone (September 1888) Credit: Musée d’Orsay, Paris Adventures with Van Gogh Adventures with Van Gogh is a weekly blog by Martin Bailey, our long-standing correspondent and expert on the artist...

On the Serious Business of 19th-Century Fairy Paintings
© » LITHUB

On the Serious Business of 19th-Century Fairy Paintings ‹ Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Fiction and Poetry News and Culture Lit Hub Radio Reading Lists Book Marks CrimeReads About Log In Literary Hub Craft and Criticism Literary Criticism Craft and Advice In Conversation On Translation Fiction and Poetry Short Story From the Novel Poem News and Culture History Science Politics Biography Memoir Food Technology Bookstores and Libraries Film and TV Travel Music Art and Photography The Hub Style Design Sports Freeman’s The Virtual Book Channel Lit Hub Radio Behind the Mic Beyond the Page The Cosmic Library The Critic and Her Publics Emergence Magazine Fiction/Non/Fiction First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing Future Fables The History of Literature I’m a Writer But Just the Right Book Keen On The Literary Life with Mitchell Kaplan New Books Network Read Smart Talk Easy Tor Presents: Voyage Into Genre Windham-Campbell Prizes Podcast Write-minded Reading Lists The Best of the Decade Book Marks Best Reviewed Books BookMarks Daily Giveaway CrimeReads True Crime The Daily Thrill CrimeReads Daily Giveaway Log In Via Pegasus Books On the Serious Business of 19th-Century Fairy Paintings Jennifer Higgie Considers the Significance of a Mystical Artistic Tradition By Jennifer Higgie January 5, 2024 Featured Image: Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing, by William Blake Much like the present moment, the nineteenth century was a time of rapid social and technological change and political turmoil...

Jesse Darling Scoops Challenging Turner Prize 2023
© » ARTLYST

In the notable annals of contemporary art, one accolade stands as a career topper, and that is the Turner Prize...

SEE WHAT SEE: BOYS’ LOVE (BL) DRAMAS
© » ARTS EQUATOR

SEE WHAT SEE: BOYS' LOVE (BL) DRAMAS | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints November 13, 2021 By Lainie Yeoh I grew up in an era where queer films were rare exceptions and it was your holy gay-af duty to watch all the ones you could access...

Charco portatil congelado (Frozen Portable Puddle)
© » KADIST

Gabriel Orozco

1994

Charco portátil congelado (Frozen Portable Puddle, 1994) is a photographic record of an installation of the same name that Gabriel Orozco made at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam for the group exhibition WATT (1994)...

Gated Commune
© » KADIST

Camel Collective

2018

Gated Commune , a video by Camel Collective, is a critique of the complex, and often obtuse, language used to describe sustainable development projects...

Related 3a
© » KADIST

Anthony Goicolea

2008

Goicolea has made drawings based on a family album of relations that he did not know but who in one way or another contributed to his history and to the predicament in which he now finds himself as a Cuban in America...

Void
© » KADIST

Joshua Serafin

2022

Through the language of dance and choreography, Void by Joshua Serafin narrates the creation of a new God, the birth of a futuristic deity...

Adelita Husni-Bey: Movement Break
© » KADIST

The first solo exhibition in the United States by KADIST Artist in Residence Adelita Husni-Bey , Movement Break addresses how capitalist imperatives condition us to perform unsustainably as individual subjects...

Museum of Crypto Art Will Raise Money to Support NFT Community Artists - via VentureBeat
© » LARRY'S LIST

The Museum of Crypto Art (MOCA) will raise money through sales of cryptocurrency tokens to help cryptocurrency artists....

Untitled
© » KADIST

Nick Mauss

2015

As in other Mauss’ works that often look unfinished, the drawings in Untitled seem ever at the phase of the sketch, his segments as if they may uproot and reorient themselves at any moment...

Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle
© » SLASH PARIS

Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle Exhibition Painting Peter Doig,Two Trees, 2017 (Détail) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Peter Doig...

I can’t believe we are still protesting
© » KADIST

Wong Wai Yin

2021

Drawn from the widely circulated images of protests around the world in support of women rights and racial equality, the phrase I can’t believe we are still protesting is both the title of Wong Wai Yin’s photographic series and a reference to similar messages seen on protest signages...

Colin Brant’s communion with the inconstant
© » TWOCOATSOFPAINT

Colin Brant’s communion with the inconstant – Two Coats of Paint Colin Brant, Lake Louise / Poppies, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 inches Contributed by Natasha Sweeten / You might consider the title of Colin Brant’s quietly inspiring exhibition “Mountains Like Rivers,” currently on view at Platform Project Space, an invitation to a world flipped on its end: what’s inherently solid becomes liquid, what’s up is now down...

Shooshie Sulaiman Residency
© » KADIST

Shooshie Sulaiman Born in 1973 in Muar, Malaysia...

Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space
© » ARTS EQUATOR

Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Courtesy of Syarifah Nadhirah August 12, 2021 By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be...

Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle
© » SLASH PARIS

Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle — Musée d’Orsay — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Peter Doig — Reflets du siècle Exposition Peinture Peter Doig,Two Trees, 2017 (Détail) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York © Peter Doig...