Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Periphery of the night

Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s work is placed in the blurred limits between night and day, wakefulness and sleep, life and death. The jungle of his childhood, suffused with folk legends and still bearing the scars of its violent past, coupled with the findings of his personal, discerning exploration of American experimental filmmaking, forms the backdrop to his own artistic practice, a calm journey to the heart of darkness—be it in nature, culture or the unconscious—in search of an alternative half-light. Periphery of the Night is the latest chapter in this adventure.

Comprising 25 artworks displayed in 1,200 square metres of dark rooms, the exhibition creates different environments in which all our senses are primed by screens that appear to melt into their surroundings, aided and abetted by an enveloping soundscape. This hospitality captures the collective dimension of his filmmaking, understood as a space for meetings and exchange between the supernatural world, which precedes and transcends the human world, and the multiple layers of real life, the site where reality and imagination, history and myth, identity and culture emerge and entwine.

The exhibition starts off as it means to go on, with a haiku synthesizing his cinematic universe: the memory of his country bleeds into the dreams of a group of teenagers, while the spontaneous relevance of Ashes is set against the backdrop of the moulded poetry of Sakda (Rousseau). This duality continues in the second floor, where we are immersed in the initiatory power of the night and its interruptions. Flashes and butterflies visit sculptures of the past and present-day concerns in Fireworks (Archives) and Fiction. The sleepless plays with fire in a mix of reflections and glass between changing scenes that invite us to sharpen our perception (Blue) or burn the screen (Phantoms of Nabua).

As urged by the name of his production company (Kick the Machine), the idea is to banish the machine and embrace the discovery that the projection lies within us, unknown bodies and shadows which, like new wandering spirits, like the dogs in The Palace, begin to inhabit his films. In the same way that intrusions are always welcome on film shoots and in exhibition spaces, interferences and superimpositions that alter and fragment the image can help reveal the filming apparatus. Taking the lid off cinema to show how motion pictures are made lets us focus on the process of filmmaking rather than the finished product, and that means including us: we are the factory of dreams.

The top floor builds on ideas introduced on the first floor. Projected onto the documentary laboratory of his Video Diaries is the shared imaginary that appears when we sleep. Furtive bedside images of Tilda Swinton (Durmiente) and his partner (Teem) place him firmly in a tradition that runs from Andrei Tarkovsky to Víctor Erice, from Andy Warhol to Sophie Calle; in contrast, his act of sending family and friends small cameras to film themselves waking up (async – first light) takes him beyond art and authorship. Through this transit of sleepers, which is both withdrawal and surrender, an altered state of consciousness that is also receptive and trusting, he films sleep as a contagious energy that blurs interpersonal limits.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is fascinated by the darkness of the night, the cinema or the jungle as an immersive yet also subversive experience. That is why he shakes it, lighting it up with tricks and blinks that invite us to seek out the revolutionary force in everyday details. It is also why he delves into the deepest depths in search of an anonymous, open community where we can dream together.