A Spiritual Spaceship To Fly To The Moon
Thai artist Torlarp Larpjaroensook (aka. Hern) uses his art to navigate the space between technology and tradition. I visited his studio in Chiang Mai to check out his installation “Spiritual Spaceship,” which will go on display in Singapore next month.
The installation emerged out of his long running series of smaller spaceship sculptures he has been making under the same title. Fabricated from porcelain vases with glowing lightbulbs for rocket boosters, the little spaceships were originally inspired by his grandmother, who used to pray to the moon each time NASA launched a space mission.
Hern recalls how she kept porcelain vases on the family altar, using them to make offerings of lotus flowers and incense, particularly during the autumn moon festival. Hence his spaceship sculptures repurpose porcelain vases and lotuses—and now also the wooden dressers upon which such objects usually sit—representing an alternative, more traditional means of reaching the heavens.
While I was certainly wowed by the massive spaceship installation, I was equally impressed by Hern’s studio and home, which he only finished building a few months ago. Constructed with 20% recycled materials, the house felt like a funky spaceship in its own right, with its porthole windows and Hern’s futuristic artworks installed around the place.
For anyone visiting Chiang Mai who wishes to experience Hern’s art and design work, they can do so at his gallery, Gallery Seescape. Starting seven years ago with just a small bar and design store, Hern added to it incrementally over the years, constructing additional gallery rooms whenever finances would allow.
Gallery Seescape has now become a mainstay of the Chiang Mai art scene, featuring a store, a cafe, and a substantial white cube with rotating exhibitions by emerging artists, as well as multiple smaller rooms full of Hern’s art.
Their current exhibition in the main space is a photo show by Tada Hengsapkul, titled “The Things That Take Us Apart,” for which the young artist put an ad in the paper, requesting people to be photographed dancing naked in an abandoned club.
Catch Hern’s “Spiritual Spaceship” installation at ADM Gallery in Singapore, opening March 15.
