Wildtype Middleclass 2026 will show a programme of independent and experimental films in July and August, at various microcinemas and other arts spaces around the country. Screenings will take place at Buffalo Bridge Gallery in Bangkok, Lorem Ipsum in Hat Yai, Berng Nang Club in Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai University’s Department of Media Arts and Design, Bliss Project in Chanthaburi, PYE Space in Phayao, and Doonungnaihognan in Korat.
One of the highlights will be Sina Wittayawiroj’s Your Ash and My Bone (ธุลีดาว), which was previously shown at Sina’s exhibition Can’t We Recant? (เราจะถอนคำพูดไม่ได้เลยหรือ?) earlier this year in Khon Kaen and last year in Bangkok. Your Ash and My Bone is a documentary collage film in which the artist narrates his life story from birth to the present, from his family background to the progress of his artistic career.
One of the highlights will be Sina Wittayawiroj’s Your Ash and My Bone (ธุลีดาว), which was previously shown at Sina’s exhibition Can’t We Recant? (เราจะถอนคำพูดไม่ได้เลยหรือ?) earlier this year in Khon Kaen and last year in Bangkok. Your Ash and My Bone is a documentary collage film in which the artist narrates his life story from birth to the present, from his family background to the progress of his artistic career.
The film’s autobiographical narration is juxtaposed with an account of Thailand’s political turmoil over the same period. There is archive footage of ‘Black May’, the 2006 coup (which Sina describes as “this poisonous tree attempting to root itself deepest into society”), the red-shirt crackdown, the whistle-blower protests, the 2014 coup, and the student protest movement of 2020–2021.
Coloured filters are used to add political commentary to some of the events: blue for 2006, red for 2010, and yellow for 2014. Music is also a key element: a montage of scenes showing the arrest of Arnon Nampa and water cannon being used in Siam Square is accompanied by Caravan’s song Jit Phumisak (จิตร ภูมิศักดิ์), linking today’s student protesters to the revolutionary young writer who was killed in 1966.
Your Ash and My Bone also highlights some of Thailand’s artistic controversies over the past two decades: the banning of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Syndromes and a Century (แสงศตวรรษ), protests against Anupong Chantorn’s painting Perceptless (ภิกษุสันดานกา), and the censorship of the Rupture (หมายเหตุ ๕/๒๕๕๓) exhibition. The film shows how political repression and artistic censorship are equally corrosive.
Some self-censorship was necessary, and Sina draws attention to this by periodically displaying a spoof computer error screen (“No Freedom”) and obscuring certain words in the English subtitles. Abhichon Rattanabhayon used a similar tactic in his short film The Six Principles (สัญญาของผู้มาก่อนกาล), as did Pen-ek Ratanaruang in Paradoxocracy (ประชาธิป'ไทย).
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