Two camping tents decorated with international cultural symbols are showcased during "The Camp Of The Wayfarers In Love" at Room 248, 2nd floor of River City Bangkok, Charoen Krung Road, until Oct 22.
This is the first chapter of an art project by Italian artist Tarshito who is inspired to artistically meet natives and tribal custodians of traditions and ancestral values.
He explores the concept of nomadism and sets out to decorate two camping tents together with two remarkable figures from Thailand -- renowned National Artist Inson Wongsam and Rampad Kothkaewm who have spent 40 years working to preserve Lanna culture through the creation of the Monfai Cultural Center/Living Museum in Chiang Mai.
Tarshito painted the bottom of the camping tents, one in black and the other one in white, to refer to yin and yang energies.
In the background of the white tent, he portrayed his usual transnational geographies consisting of maps that approach distant places in the world. He also put three of his specific and recurrent symbols -- a temple on a turtle's shell, a tiger with a jar tale, and a warrior of love.
Inson's contribution to this white background canvas is presented through a series of abstract shapes, and archetypes that connect the personal to the collective.
For the black tent, Tarshito rendered some trees' roots that function as foundations of Rampad's traditional mural paintings of male and female dancers, as a symbolic connection.
Here, the fruit produced by trees is transformed into fishes, jars and bells suggesting the idea of a divinised nature from which northern Thailand's culture takes its origins.
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