Silpa: the Art of Love

Chapter 10
We are the Fabric of Life

Just when I’m starting to think the women aren’t going to show, they
arrive as en masse at the faculty caf?, nearly an hour later than we’d
arranged. I hope Silpa will still be waiting at the restaurant, then
remember how late he was yesterday and how everybody has been late
for everything so far since I arrived, but, in this country, nobody appears
to worry about it. I decide not to worry about it either as I greet them.

Walking into Ming Lee with five young women who are obviously not
artists and not even students doesn’t impress the Jays, one of them
comes over waving as soon as the first sets foot in the door. If it wasn’t
for Silpa coming to the rescue, we’d have had no chance of getting in.

I’d missed Silpa’s smile the whole time we’d been apart; surely he can tell
how ecstatic I am to see him by the way my face lights up. He seems so
happy whenever I see him, I wonder if he’s always like this or, as he’s
affected me, I influence his mood. He shows the six of us to a table and
orders while I apologise for keeping him waiting.

“No problem,” he replies. “Are these your budding artists?”

“Yes indeed.” I introduce the women to Silpa.

“Please, Anna, talk with them. I’d enjoy listening to what you all have to
say.”

“Okay.” I distribute eye contact evenly around the table. “What I want to
do is express through the work the concerns you want to deal with, and
I’d like you to help me create the work with as much input as you’d like
to give, so this won’t be my work, it’ll be our work. I’m an installation
artist, which is the medium I propose we use. Do you know anything
about installation art?”

They shake their heads.

“Basically it’s anything you want it to be. It can be found objects,
assemblages of everyday items that are either presented as they are or
somehow changed or incorporated into something else, or something
created completely from the imagination or experience. The idea is to
convey an idea in ways they’ve never been presented before. Do you
understand?”

They nod and look as if they’re getting it.

“As I say, I want you to be the ones in control of this, and a good place
to start is with an idea, theme or issue you want to address before we
decide how to go about it. Let me give you a few examples. Do you want
to talk about HIV/AIDS? How women have been commodified in the
globalised economy? Do some commentary on the sex tour industry or a
parody of the submissive Asian woman myth? Comment on the decimation
of female children from villages to work in brothels? Perhaps something
about the psychological consequences of the brutalisation of underagers
who are coerced into working? Or something more general based around
a simple idea like the ‘body for sale?’ Or perhaps loving yourself and your
friends – like I saw last night – and not the men?” I pause, waiting for
their response. “What is it you want to do?”

Rat, who looks to be the eldest of the bunch at what I guess to be about
twenty-two, speaks first. “We don’t understand every word you said, but
when Sittichoke called us and asked if we wanted to help you make some
art, he explained it’s not going to be the same as with him where we’re
models for him to paint. He told us you want us to make the work with
our ideas.”

“Yeah,” agrees Moo, “we thought, who’s this crazy foreigner? Then, you
know, we think about it a lot and talk about it too, I mean we talk a lot.”

“Yeah,” says Rin, “talking about what we want to do.”

“We may not understand every word but we get what you mean. We
already hear from everybody else what you just said,” says Moo. “The
people and organisations who come to talk about us bar girls or prostitutes
or whatever you want to call us always do what you just did, they only
talk about the bad things, always saying how bad the stereotypes are of
us, then stereotyping us every word they say.”

They stop talking to allow me to say supportively, “You’re not bar girls:
you’re women.”

Tear, the baby of the group who mustn’t be any older than seventeen
and who gives the distinct impression of being the quietest of the five,
weighs in with her soft voice. “I like what you said at the end, about us
loving each other because we do, we’re all like sisters. We don’t love the
men, not the men who pay for us. I love my sweetheart in my village,
and he loves me and wants to marry me, despite knowing what I do.”
The mention of her boyfriend brings a tear to her eye.

“And I’m a mother. My son is the most important thing in the whole world,”
says Rat becoming louder. “He’s three years old and I’m a good mother to
him, everything I do is for him! And Lek, she looks after her mother, who’s
always sick. The money she earns pays for medicine and she looks after
her!”

Their emotions in part vented we sit in silence for a few seconds as I
digest what they’ve told me. “So, what you’re saying you want to do, if
I’m correct, is you want to focus on the positives of womanhood, such
as motherhood, being equal partners and caregivers, which you’re saying
you haven’t been deprived of, rather than focus on the negatives of your
lives as prostitutes because that would reinforce the stereotype itself,
right?”

“Yes,” they agree.

“That’s great! Have you started to think about how you want to do it?”

“Tear and Rin come from villages in Isan, in the northeast of Thailand,”
says Rat on their behalf. “Up there the women make beautiful silk. They
say they want to do something with that. Me, Lek and Moo, we’re not
sure yet.”

“Okay, Tear, if I can just ask you about this fabric in your own words,
why is it so special to you?”

“I don’t know,” she responds self-consciously.

I encourage her to continue. “Come on, just a few words.”

“Well,” she starts uncertainly. “Women are the most important thing for
life. We make the fabric, and we make the fabric of life too.” She
interlocks the fingers of her hands together. “And now we’ve been sent
away to Bangkok to work. Like this, nobody makes the fabric, and life
breaks apart.” She pulls her hands away from each other, unravelling the
symbolic fibres.

I am truly impressed with her sentiment. “That’s so beautiful, Tear, you’re
a poet. Why don’t we use your words exactly to name the exhibition and
call it ‘The Fabric of Life?’”

“We are the fabric of life,” adds Rat to emphasise the point.

“Even better, hands up for calling our show, ‘We are the Fabric of Life.’”

Six hands shoot into the air and a loud cheer goes around the restaurant.
We continue our meal optimistically discussing everything that has to be
done, bringing out their ideas with my knowledge of the medium. Silpa sits
mostly in silence, except when asked a direct question, until we leave
Ming Lee. We’re all so excited to be involved with each other in doing this
they’re keen to see the gallery and workshop straightaway.

At the courtyard, I turn to Silpa. “I’m so sorry, Silpa, I’ve been ignoring
you.”

“Not at all. Watching you and your new found friends has been an
educational experience.”

“I suppose you must have a class to go to now.”

“Yes,” he answers with a smile, “and I just came from one.”

I get the joke and share a small laugh with him. “I’m sorry, I have to take
the women to show the workshop and gallery. Would you like to tag
along?”

“I’d like to but I actually do have a class I’m already late for.” He wais
and, looking more like Tear than his usual self, asks timidly, “Perhaps we
can eat our next meal by ourselves, without our students or your
appointed chaperones.”

By ‘next meal’ I hope he literally means it and venture, “Are you asking me
to have dinner with you tonight?”

“Can you?”

“I’d love to.”