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Thailand 2005
I'm Sorry I Don't Speak Your Language is a series of photographs made in Thailand. The project acknowledges what seems like the perpetually nomadic/ touristic basis of contemporary art practice, and tries to enact brief personal exchanges beyond those thought to be typical of the visitor and the visited. This process is manifested in a reevaluation, and reappropriation of the format of the tourist snapshot.
A series of yellow Tshirts have been hand-painted by the artist with Thai translations of the statements I'm Sorry I Don't Speak Your Language and I Thought I Would Feel Fat and Useless Here. These T shirts are worn by the artist on trips to the many domestic and international tourist sites in Thailand, where the artist is photographed. What looks like a decorative text on the Tshirt to a Westerner actually functions as a hidden communication and conversation point to/with domestic tourists and the local people working in the tourist industry.
The form of the Tshirt refers to an icon of Western clothing, a standard souvenir. It also refers to the forces of globalisation that enforce unfair work practices - the Tshirt being worn, bought in Ireland, was actually manufactured by cheap labour in Asia. The images include typical tourist snapshots (of a slightly overweight, awkward white woman) in front of obvious tourist landmarks, but they also reveal a deflected gaze that sometimes results in slightly bizarre, banal or puzzling images – posing beside a row of yellow DHL vans outside a temple or beside a flowerpot at a regional flowershow.
The audience exchanges this project values are elusive, fleeting, sometimes embarrassing and occasionally serendipitous - at occasions such as the King's birthday, the whole city of Bangkok turned out in yellow Tshirts (coincidentally the royal colour), which resulted in many mutual snapshots and exchanges of photos. As a result I produced namecards that I exchanged with people when we are photographed together. This prompts the possibility of a multiplicity and dissemination of this work as my representations and those of other tourists create complex and personal narratives.
Photographs by Gareth Kennedy.
Supported by a Travel and Mobility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland.
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