Bounpaul Phothyzan (b. 1979, Champasak, Laos) is an emerging contemporary artist whose practice centres on Land art, installation art and video art. He graduated from the Institute of Fine Arts (previously known as Faculty of Fine Art) in 2007, and was awarded a scholarship to undertake a Master’s degree in Visual Art at Mahasarakham University in Thailand.
His solo exhibitions include Champa Muang Lao exhibition (2004), Turning Point exhibition at Mask Gallery (2015), and River Flows Through My Soul exhibition (2019) in Vientiane Laos. He has also participated in various international group exhibitions include Singapore Biennale (2013), Singapore Arts Stage (2014), The 5th Fukuoka Asian Art Triennale, Japan (2015), Remembrance Reimagining ASEAN + KOREA in Jakarta, Indonesia (2016), Gwangju International Art Festival, South Korea (2017), Imaginarium: To the Ends of the Earth at the Singapore Art Museum (2018), Thailand Biennale in Krabi, Thailand (2018), The 9th Asia Pacific Triennial in Brisbane, Australia (2018).
This work is inspired by today’s situation about human-beings voraciously taking advantage of nature, including deforestation for agriculture, concentration of population in the urban community, and various activities humans have created. Such social actions are claimed to bring about prosperity or civilization for oneself and the society. However, things people create are often ways more than what necessary; it gradually causes natural changes and major negative effect. Such changes therefore reflect back to human-beings to face latter serious natural disasters, inevitably.
Because nature is part of humans and humans are part of nature, human-beings cannot be born and exist without bountiful nature. I can then clearly see from the current social and natural impact that all of us are jeopardizing ourselves, one way or another.
There is folklore about the origin of Lao people. Long ago, before the birth of Lao race, there is one type of calabash called Nam-Tao-Poung. The story said an old couple had punctured into the Nam-Tao-Poung, and allowed the people inside to escape out. The legend has therefore become the story of Laos people’s ethnicity. In addition, this local legend points to issue over anthropological principle about all human-kinds are born from nature before being able to evolve into various forms.
While we are embraced by nature, rely on it to survive, and still need to evolve through the nature around us, but why we still keep destroying nature without mercy.
Photo source: singaporeartmuseum.sg YouTube channel
