Two Who Remember the Sea has been living at Wessex Estate since January, gathering light, absorbing the movement of the trees, and keeping time with the wind. On the evening of 18 July, the work opens its hours to visitors as night falls.

The evening will begin with the artists Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Guo-Liang Tan in conversation with curator Selene Yap. As dusk settles, the event continues with a projection set to live acoustic accompaniment, offering an alternative way of encountering and imagining the work through light and sound.

Visitors may access the work via 2 Wilton Close. From the roadside, follow the dirt path leading into the wooded area, where the installation is situated within the clearing. Click here for directions to the venue. As the event takes place outdoors, comfortable attire is advised. Please note that the nearest washroom facilities are approximately a 15-minute walk from the installation. We recommend using the facilities before heading to the site.

About the Work
Two Who Remember the Sea grows from the artists' fascination with the spaces and rituals of the cinematic. Set against the lush greenery of Wessex estate, suspended silver fabric moves in the landscape like spectral figures. Choreographed with movements powered by the sun and wind, the work stages a scene that is open and dream-like. The abstract imagery on the fabric evokes a shadowy presence coming in and out of view with the opening and closing motion. This acts as a kind of screen and porous frame, which light and air can enter and pass through.

The kinetic installation invites a meditation on frames of all kinds, from the cinematic to the memorial, reflecting the way life and death, presence and absence continually animate each other. The cloth and its shifting forms are in part a remembrance of gentle, wandering ghosts shrouded in white and longing for human closeness. These subtle allusions to victims of violence, connecting folklore to political reality, are found in the mid-century illustrations of Thai artist and writer Hem Vejakorn. Rather than inhabiting darkness, the haunted screens in Two Who Remember the Sea are stirred by daylight, their energy drawn from the same source that sustains the natural life around them.

In collaboration with Rueangrith Suntisuk and Pornpan Arayaveerasid of Bangkok-based collective DuckUnit
Kinetic Design: Laphonphat Duongploy
Construction Research & Development: Piti Boonsom, paraform studio
Fabrication and Installation: Benny Ng, INDC Pte Ltd
Project Management: BANGKOK CITYCITY GALLERY

Supported by One Bangkok.

About the Artists

Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a filmmaker and artist who lives and works in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He has developed a practice that spans cinema, installation and exhibition-making. His work weaves together memory, myth, desire and landscape through meditative, non-linear forms. He is widely recognised as a singular voice in both cinema and contemporary art. He is best known for Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (2010), which won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, along with other celebrated films such as Tropical Malady (2004), Blissfully Yours (2002), Syndromes and a Century (2006), and Memoria (2021).

Beyond cinema, his installations explore time, invisibility, spirituality and collective memory, with notable projects such as Primitive (2009) and Fireworks (Archives) (2014). Recent works include A Minor History (2021–2022), A Conversation with the Sun VR (2022) and Ring of Fire (2024, with Haegue Yang). A retrospective of his practice was presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2024.

Guo-Liang Tan is a visual artist whose practice centres on painting, from which works in other media and modes of presentation occasionally emerge. He explores surfaces, as sites for staging gestures of affect and dialogues with the ghosts of abstraction. His process is marked by gaps and overlaps, fragmentation and the gathering of traces. Tan is particularly interested in how these elements expand and reorient our perception of the body, time and attention. Tan has exhibited at Pola Museum of Art, Hakone, Japan, the Singapore Art Museum, Singapore and Sifang Satellite Space, Shanghai, as well as Storage, Bangkok.

Photo credit: Rueangrith Suntisuk