The project starts with a conversation between Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Shuxia Chen. They ask each other questions in their common language, English; however, each chooses to answer the question in whichever language they feel like using to respond – which could be English, but also Thai (Phaptawan’s native language), or Mandarin and Cantonese (Shuxia’s native languages). Not understanding each other’s mother tongues, Phaptawan and Shuxia at times catch only a vague sense of meaning from the unspoken things during the conversation: the gesture, the tone, the emotion, the facial expression. A certain tension emerges due to the challenges of communicating, yet this is counterposed by a soft cream coloured cloth they are both holding as they speak. On this cloth, which connects them, Phaptawan and Shuxia will embroider or unravel some thread to form a text in Thai, Chinese and English.Images and video
(Un)spoken
The project starts with a conversation between Phaptawan Suwannakudt and Shuxia Chen. They ask each other questions in their common language, English; however, each chooses to answer the question in whichever language they feel like using to respond – which could be English, but also Thai (Phaptawan’s native language), or Mandarin and Cantonese (Shuxia’s native languages). Not understanding each other’s mother tongues, Phaptawan and Shuxia at times catch only a vague sense of meaning from the unspoken things during the conversation: the gesture, the tone, the emotion, the facial expression. A certain tension emerges due to the challenges of communicating, yet this is counterposed by a soft cream coloured cloth they are both holding as they speak. On this cloth, which connects them, Phaptawan and Shuxia will embroider or unravel some thread to form a text in Thai, Chinese and English.Images and video