A solo show in which Navin Rawanchaikul collaborated with three of his high school friends as they travelled to Vancouver with a reed grass mat in hand. The mat is a welcome space in Thai and Asian culture that is rolled out when friends visit, a device for communication it is also about being in close proximity to the earth. The project explored how this ready-made vernacular object could be given new context. A multicultural city with a flood of Asian migrants, Navin and the gang documented themselves touring Vancouver getting to know the mix of inhabitants with the resulting footage shown across several monitors placed on the floor mats in the gallery. Aside from the videos, visitors called also lounge on the mats and read Navin’s first ever comic book, while behind was a large painted billboard depicting the gang on a magic mat-carpet flying above Vancouver. The exhibition also gave out free reed mats to visitors along with postcards inviting people to record their thoughts on what they did with the grass mats and send the cards back to the gang in Thailand.

Gallery