Apichatpong Weerasethakul 

Apichatpong Weerasethakul was born in Bangkok, Thailand in 1970 and lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Working in the space between cinema and contemporary art, Apichatpong Weerasethakul creates installations and films that are often non-linear and convey a strong sense of dislocation and otherworldliness. Through the manipulation of time and light, Weerasethakul constructs tenuous bridges for the viewer to travel between the real and the mythical, the individual and the collective, the corporeal and the chimeric. Over the years, the majority of his projects have involved many of the same actors, which has allowed him to capture different phases of their lives and their experience of ageing. Frequently set in rural Thai villages and forests, his films traverse an extremely personal territory, inviting the viewer to enter the subjective world of memory, myth and deep yearning. By using unconventional narrative structures, expanding and constructing the sensation of time, and playing with ideas of veracity and linearity, Weerasethakul’s work sits comfortably in a world of his own making.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is exhibiting the UK premiere of his film Invisibility (2016). The film, shown across two screens, appear dreamlike and meditative, but reveal the ghosts of Thailand’s political past, and the dark underside of political corruption that continues today.

His projects and feature films have won him widespread recognition and numerous festival prizes, including three from the Cannes Film Festival: A Certain Regard for Blissfully Yours in 2002, Prix du Jury for Tropical Malady in 2004 and Palme d’Or for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives in 2010.

Recent solo exhibitions include: The Serenity of Madness, Oklahoma City Museum of Art, United States (2018); Luminous Shadows, Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, Lithuania (2018); The Serenity of Madness, Museum of Contemporary Art and Design (MCAD), Manila, Philippines, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, United States (2017), and Para Site, Hong Kong, China (2016); Tate Film Pioneers: Apichatpong Weerasethakul: Mirages, Tate Modern, London (2016).