Spinning,Weaving and Tracing the time

Time is inherent in cloth. The warp represents the time that continues from the past to the future, and the weft represents the present. The act of unraveling a cloth is unraveling past time.

It is a work that unravels traditional textiles from the Karen people who settled near the border with Myanmar and reconstructs time and space. Plant fossils are displayed in this space, and there is a huge tree that has been turned into fossils. The continuation of this tree was set up with Karen cloth. Space time is being reconstructed by unraveling and re-spinning Karen cloth in a space filled with ancient time called the Fossil Museum. The space, which has been dismantled and respun, is filled with time from the land of Korat, mixed with time that continues from the past. Using Karen cloth, which goes with people's activities, also touches people's memories in Thailand. Viewers will be able to think about the cloth and trace their memories when they see a familiar pattern.

This cloth standing up in space visualizes various times and takes us back in time. It takes us on a journey through time.

Capturing the local memories of landscapes, and the mundane moments from her daily life, Japanese artist Mio Suzuki dismantles these memories and reconstructs various patterns that may reflect on the time that contained these memories. In “Spinning, Weaving and Tracing the time”, she unwinds and reconstructs traditional fabrics by Karen People settled mostly in Thailand-Myanmar border. This site-specific installation is created in the Khorat Fossil Museum, a space filled with ancient time-space. For the artist, the warp represents the flow of time from past to future, while the weft symbolizes present. Her working process of the installation with a labor-intensive work uncovers a mixture of multiple times of the local history and memory of Karen people and geological and archeological experience of the museum while aesthetical reformation of intimate patterns of Karen People’s fabric by Suzuki will invite viewers to an extraordinary journey of  retracing individual memories.

Exhibition name: 2nd Thailand Biennale Korat 2021

　　　　　　　　“Butterflies Frolicking on the Mud: Engendering Sensible Capital”

Event period: December 18, 2021 to March 31, 2022

Venue: Korat city (square, university, zoo, fossil museum, etc.), Pemai district (ruins, museums, etc.)

Artistic Director : Yuko Hasegawa

Co-Curator : Tawatchai Somkong, Vipash Purichanont, Seiha Kurosawa

Organizer : Office of Contemporary Art and Culture (OCAC) Ministry of Culture, Thailand