Les Brigittines

Bangkok / New York

In 2018, a youth soccer team became trapped in a cave in Chiang Rai, one of the most mediatised events in Thailand’s recent history. Some of the boys did not yet have Thai nationality, and the country tried to grant it to them in time, to create the narrative of the team as national heroes. In No History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 5, Korakrit Arunanondchai interprets this episode through ghost cinema, a tradition of holding screenings without human spectators, and reserved for spirits only. Its origins date back to when American soldiers were stationed in Thailand during the Vietnam War; they would project light onto the trees across the border to confuse the opponents, and the locals would attribute this to ghosts. In his non-linear style of storytelling, Arunanondchai creates an incredibly visionary work: an investigation into nationalism, beliefs, and the right of asylum. Presented in the space of the Brigittines chapel, No History in a Room Filled with People with Funny Names 5 becomes a triptych of expanded cinema, resonating with the interior architecture. It is a ghostly journey accompanied by green laser lights, hovering somewhere between transcendence, war operations, and the infrared vision of speleological missions.