School of Improper Education at To Whom It May Concern exhibition in Bangkok CityCity Gallery

School of Improper Education is taking part in To Whom It May Concern exhibition at Bangkok CityCity Gallery, 9 August – 3 September 2017

SOIE (represented by Gatari Surya Kusuma, Daud Sihombing, Prapti Alpandi) will practice Mulur Mungkret in Three Acts for our participation in the exhibition.

Mulur Mungkret is a Javanese term which describes the process of moving through pulling in and extending, by stretching and shrinking. Not unlike the ways an earthworm moves, as it prolongs and shortens its body in order to keep going. Not unlike the techniques in flying a kite, when its string is reeled and slackened so that the kite remains steady as it goes higher and navigates the ever-changing the wind.

Mulur Mungkret is an exercise in negotiating bodily capacities in encountering their surrounding. Mulur Mungkret is a practice in learning and unlearning: feeding the body with a new knowledge and undoing the corporeal knowledge.

Act 1: Slipping bodies

In the first act, we would like to invite people to experiment with forms of failure. This exercise will be held in a skatepark in Bangkok. In this session, participants will be divided into 2 groups: the first group consists of people who cannot skateboard and want to learn skateboard; and the second one is people who are able to skateboard and unlearn this skill. After this session we will have a discussion to reflect about the emerging experiences.

Act 2: Entangled Spaces

In the second act, we invite people to join temporary Facebook Chatting group to discuss about the spatial aspects of studying, how much proximity and distance regulate the body in this process. Participants can join the chatting session from different locations, while doing different activities (stuck in traffic, working in office, sitting in the park and so on). We can also reflect how different spatial contexts; physical proximity or virtually mediated,  affect learning procesess.

Act 3: Hacking Order

This public discussion departs from one main question: What kind of rules will you make in the school if you have the power/authority to make them? This session aims at looking at the roles of collective imagination in creating order as well as its limitation. It also focuses on a forum for exchanging critical ideas towards the role of rules and regulations in formal and institutionalized education.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN EXHIBITION

What are values and gestures of writing about art in the realm of artistic production and exhibition making? To what extent thinking and writing become a driving force for the production of art? Is it probable that the act of writing is transferred into responsibilities and questions leading to no tangible goal? How (much) you value and acknowledge this intangible work?

These are initial inquiries for TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN Project, an extensive part of the research project about the practices of art criticism by Judha Su who started to realise the missing or trivialised method in the artistic process and in the discourse of the development of art as a whole. The phrase “To Whom It May Concern” is generally used by a letter writer to address people whom are not exactly known or clearly identified. For this project, this phrase is employed as its title to imply something obscure as well as to seek people who are concerned about this issue. It is thus an examination of criticality and of dialogues about art in Thai context, and an experiment on overarching concept to open more entrances for thinking and critical inquires about art.

This group exhibition TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN brings artists together to translate issues they are concerned: Kittisak Chonthong; Chulayarnnon Siriphol; Namfon Udomlertlak; Nuttapon Sawasdee; Pisitakun Kuntalang and Sina Wittayawiroj, will interpret the initial concept of the project into their individual works, and open various entrances for audiences to dialogue.

Along with collaborations with artists, art & cultural practitioners from different locations: Elaine W. Ho, from Homeshop (Beijing) and Display Distribute (Hong Kong); Jong Pairez from Radio Kosaten (Tokyo); and School of Improper Education from KUNCI Cultural Studies Centre (Yogyagarta); will carry out the collaboration based on their discursive practices.