About

Sopawan Boonnimitra is a filmmaker and photographer. She recently completed her PhD in Artistic Research at Goldsmiths College, London, Malmö Art Academy, Malmö, and Lund University, Lund with a thesis entitled “Lak-ka-pid-lak-ka-perd: Contemporary Urban Conditions with Special Reference to Thai Homosexuality.” She is also a regular lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. For further information on her previous research and art projects see www.leavetoremain.com. Boonnimitra lives and works in Bangkok.

Taking Lak-ka-pid-lak-ka-perd (“Sometimes closed-sometimes open”)

Sopawan Boonnimitra, through her long-term research project Leave to Remain, investigates the condition and meaning of “other spaces” occupied by those who are considered to be the “other” in the general consensus of a society, such as the space allotted for homosexuals. Taking Lak-ka-pid-lak-ka-perd (“sometimes closed-sometimes open”) as the guiding notion, she also focuses on how the changing conception of “home” reflects the condition of mobility and migration as well as the presence of the body of the “other” in contemporary society.

Building upon this research project, Boonnimitra explores the particular psychological and social condition of immigrants and refugees in Thailand. In a similar way, the Netherlands becomes another case study. Encountering various NGOs and spaces which deal with the status and condition of illegal migrants and refugees, Boonnimitra met and interviewed various refugee families in a refugee camp in Amersfoort. A series of photographic works were also made, which will ultimately take the form of a complex installation including video and text.