Som Supaparinya

Thai artist Som Supaparinya (b. 1973) explores how infrastructure, landscapes, and political alliances shape collective memory across Southeast Asia. Her first solo exhibition in Scandinavia brings together two recent video installations that connect overlooked regional histories to contemporary global questions of power, ecology, and geopolitics.

Along hidden routes Som Supaparinya observes natural and built environments inside and around her home country Thailand with a strong documentary approach. Through field studies and filming, historic photography, archival research, and listening she reveals unknown stories and lasting traces — in rural land, roads and rivers, cityscapes, historical sites, and often forgotten places.

The exhibition Reroute: at Kunsthal Charlottenborg brings together, for the first time, two video installations that critically examine the complex evolution of Thailand’s role within the social and political power structures of Southeast Asia and how this is globally connected. Melted Stars (2026) uncovers the repressed memory of the country’s involvement in Japan’s military operations during World War II, while Mo num en ts (2025) investigates the enduring consequences of Thailand’s exploitative alliance with the United States during the Cold War era.

As the title Reroute: suggests — the exhibition exposes infrastructure as a form of power that is both material and symbolic: military routes, bridges, railways, dams, and monumental construction projects prove to be enduring embodiments of progress, propaganda, and geopolitical ambitions. At the same time, Supaparinya explores how this has shaped the ecological and social landscape to date and challenges the fragile relationship between the creation of national myths, environmental exploitation, and the question of who holds power over the narratives of collective memory.