“Liam Mab Mab” KHONKAEN MANIFESTO 2018 Exhibition at GF Building, Khonkaen

“Disguised Art:   Phi Mae Mai Estate Case….Episode

 

For this exhibition, the artist composes all artworks conveying murder cases and investigation integrated with contexts of other sciences such as history, anthropology, folkloristics, and psychology. It simulates the scenes where dead people were killed by unknown cause. In this exhibition, audiences will participate in searching, investing, and decoding the study on Genealogy of dead people whereas all sciences as mentioned above are applied to create this art collection.

There was an event when many men were dead at the same period of time with unknown cause and it was believed by Isan people that it was caused by “Phi Mae Mai” or “Phi Me Hang” or a kind of ghosts called by local people as widow ghost. Phi Mae Mai is a kind of beautiful female ghosts with strong allure as if they can fool men with their magic. They are dead women who still think of their husbands. Phi Mae Mai can be compared as succubus in western belief and they often appear in their demanded men’s dream causing them to be dead which is called by villagers as “Lai Tai (Sudden Unexplained/Unexpected Death Syndrome”. The artist established a hypothesis on the existence of the belief on “Phi Mae Mai” that it was related by other contexts that could be divided into 3 dimensions in both political and personal levels including:

 

                  1.Murder and Death with No Investigation

After 1957, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata made a coup to seize the power from Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsongkram leading to absolute dictatorship. The constitution was terminated and the First National Economic and Social Development Plan was established under sponsorship of U.S.A. in 1958 to development country and transform structural economy from government fund to be funds from banks and private sector for constructing roads, water supply, electricity, maps, lands, and camps. In addition, Absolute Monarchy was also restored with the policy on suppressing communist. Many news reporters, politicians, journalists, writings, farmers, and normal persons with different opinions were killed and arrested without investigation according to the policy on national security. Some of them escaped this killing and arresting to forest or oversea. The communities were collapsed and many widows and old women had to stay at home with their children. A few years after the death of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata, there was a mob of farmers who assembled with the communist party on August 8th, 1693 (B.E. 2508) (8/8/08) that was called “Wan Siang Puen Taek (First Gunfire Day) at Nabua Village, Nakhon Phanom Province. This situation was occurred along with scandalous prosecution against estates of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata.

 

                   2. Fighting for Legacy of Sin

After the death of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata, all of his wives and heirs that were almost 100 persons revealed themselves and showed their rights on his estates because it was found that the total assets and properties of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata was over than 2,800 million baht. They fought against one another to gain these estates and their story became scandalous and interested by Thai people. Consequently, the government under ruling of Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn had to plan on intervening and investigating this case.

On June 26th, 1964, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn declared that he would apply Section 17 of the Constitution of The Kingdom of Thailand B.E. 2502 to seize properties and assets of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata and the Investigation Committee was established to investigate corruption of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata. After investigating, it was found that while Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata was still alive, he exercised his power and authorities illegally to embezzle and misappropriate some government’s assets to pay to his comfort women as well as to invest in hos own businesses. Those benefits were obtained from the government money including budget for secret service of the Prime Minister’s Office, money from the Government Lottery Office, and a share from the government lotteries of Royal Thai Army. Moreover, the Investigation Committee also found that Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata and Thanpuying Vijitra held some shares of Krungtep Krasorbpan Company whereas there was a law enforcing people to purchase hemp sacks from this company. Consequently, Field Marshal Sarit Thanarachata earned such a huge benefit from rice industry. Finally, all of his assets and properties were seized as the government’s assets on August 9th, 1965.  

 

 

3.Investigation on Personal memory of Haunting Dreams: Deep Trauma of the Artist

from Dictatorship in Patriarchy Family and Mother who Became a Witch  

This dimension relates to personal memory of the artist because the artist’s family always had severe conflicts with patriarchy and dictatorship used by the father that can be assumed as influence of the concept on dictatorship of Marshal Sarit Thanarachata when the father was grown. The artist was unable to express personal opinions and there were many time that the artist’s opinions are different from those of other family members leading to violence in the family. Finally, the artist became a weird person with mental trauma due to personal memory and abnormal lifestyle that was compared as the ghost’s life leading to separation of the family. The artist’s father left the mother and had a new wife causing the artist’s mother to become a “widow”. The artist’s mother tried to find the solution fo this problem and she finally turned to be a witch for curing her mind.

 

Accordingly, such concept became inspiration of this art collection with the purpose to enable audiences to use personal experiences on ceremonies for preventing Phi Mae Mai under the belief of local people in Isan region to investigate, decode, and interpret both hidden and revealed symbols through a mannequin with red nails, boiled egg eating, penis sculpture, hanging banana in front of the house, forcing husband to wear sarong for sleeping, or constructing shrines for worshipping and ceremonies. These are all considered as pressure and symbols of fear and danger against animalism that used to be the ruler of the Southeast Asia with the foundation related to ancient time and military dictatorship based on the concept of Bhrama and Aryan embedded with masculinity even in current society.