SingartMore Than Simply a Taste of Thai
Still from Arin Rungjang’s “Golden Teardrop”. Photo credit: Future Perfect.
For conceptual artist Arin Rungjang food remains pivotal in his exhibitions. In this case, he takes us on a historical and geographical journey, in epic proportions, of one dish in particular – an egg yolk-based Thai dessert known as thong yod.
Through his exploration of this Thai-cherished “Golden Teardrop”, Rungjang has high expectations its audiences will strip away its layers of hidden meanings to revel in its cross-cultural connections.
His work alludes to an era of Thai history – a period where thong yod was first crystallized in the country’s evolving story. In so doing, his video art documents a captivating tale that reveals the connection between the Thais, the Portuguese, the Greeks and the Japanese.
And it is a telling that began about 700 years ago in Portugal when Henry the navigator, the 15thcentury prince and explorer introduced sugar to this country. It was an introduction that was warmly embraced by the Portuguese nuns at a convent of Jesus in the little town Aveiro: they used it to make their country’s first ovos modes.
This Portuguese confection was what eventually became the Golden Teardrop, or thong yod, when it travelled from Portugal to Japan before making its way to the old Siamese city of Ayutthaya in the 17thcentury.
The Greek adventurer, Constantine Phaulkon, is the pivotal element of this magical transformation when he became a counselor to Ayutthaya’s King Narai about 350 years ago.
Why? And how?
Well, Maria Guyomar de Pinha, came along with Constantine to this ancient Siamese city. This Catholic woman of Japanese, Portuguese and Bangali descent was his wife and upon her arrival speedily recreated ovos modes as her comfort food from home.
King Narai soon got a taste of it and loved it so much the Thais embraced it as their very own thong yod.
But this epic story of Golden Teardrop, a dessert first invented by a Portugese nun, does not end there. Rungjang weaves into the documentary’s narrative thong yod’s modern day application in the kitchens of Thailand through the telling of Hisako, a US-educated Japanese woman.
Her mother and grandmother had lived in Hiroshima and had survived the atomic bomb. Their survival ensured her eventual existence, which in turn allowed her to become the spouse of Rungjang’s colleague; so ending up in Thailand, opening a bakery shop in the process and lovingly making Golden Teardrops for her family.
Inter-woven into all these fragmented threads of documented history is also a video on how Rungjang crafts a sculpture installation as an integral part of his “Golden Teardrop” artwork; providing vivid imagery of the delicate smelting process.
The resulting sculpture installation consists of hundreds of pieces of beaten brassy bronze, each gently shaped like a smoothly refined thong yod teardrop. All un-intrusively threaded together by extremely fine copper wire and hung from a ceiling structure made from materials salvaged from an old wooden house from Ayutthaya and a railway train factory that was in production during the Second World War.
Like a chicly sophisticated and yet dignified modern day chandelier, Rungjang’s installation brings to vivid reality the deep love all Thais have for their much cherished thong yod.
All these literal and documented little threads of grand and small narratives combine to form a work about the fragmentary nature of history through humanity’s collective memory.
And this is achieved when Rungjang’s audiences astutely reassemble the disjunctive layers of personal and public conversations, thereby heightening their awareness of the secret intrigues that are catalyzed by institutional supremacy over the individual person’s limitations.
Yet it is an artwork where if the Portuguese come to view it, they will be able to relate to it; as would the Greeks and the Japanese. But Rungjang does not consider the work dedicated to the Greeks, the Portuguese, the Japanese or the Thai people. He wants all audiences to view it and make their own judgments.
And so in many ways, he has followed in the likes of the few Thai artists who have transcended the limits of a Thai-ness in their works. Like Montien Booma, Rungjang creates art of an international standing.
It is definitely this standing that drew for Rungjang an invitation from Thailand’s Office of Contemporary Art in the Ministry of Culture to participate in the 55th Venice Biennale earlier this year.
The Thai Pavillion at this much-publicized biennale focused on the theme of food as a promotion of Thailand’s soft power as a kitchen to the world. This catalyzed the conceptualization and realization of his much publicized “Golden Teardrop”.
Truly this revelation adds definitive layers to the intricate web of globally-motivated history Rungjang has ingeniously weaved around Thailand’s dearly loved thong yod.
Spin yet more yarn into Rungjang’s web of culinary-inspired history by viewing his “Golden Teardrop” at Future Perfect, at 47 Malan Road, #01-22 Gillman Barracks, Singapore 109444. His exhibition ends on 8 December this year.
