To commemorate the centenary of legendary American silk baron Jim Thompson’s birth in 2006, Lost in the City transformed the Jim Thompson Art Center into a pseudo Bangkok street scene with paved sidewalks and traffic signs, a working telephone box, a functioning street caf, market stalls purveying a wide range of specially designed Lost in the City merchandising, and a mock cinema front with illuminated billboard. Outside in the museum’s grounds, regular performances of a special Lost in the City puppet show engaged visitors. Exploring the mystery shrouding Jim Thompson’s disappearance in 1967, the exhibition also examined parallel themes on the development of Bangkok as a modern metropolis.

Recounted through episodes in a four-volume comic collection created by Navin Production, against the main Lost in the City movie painting was a modern illuminated inkjet printed billboard projecting an image of Jim Thompson sitting on the contemporary Skytrain surrounded by passengers, while across the image is the graffiti scrawl “He’s Back!”, referring to Thompson’s fancied return to his adopted home after 40 years “lost”.

The centrepiece was an elaborate 16-metre long hand-painted traditional temple style mural of contemporary Bangkok, which is placed atop a faux sidewalk livened with scraps of garbage and dog faeces! Produced in collaboration with a team of Thai muralists, the eight canvases are overwhelming in their detailed secular depictions of vernacular Bangkok and the daily rituals of its inhabitants. Employing the flat perspectives typical to Thai temple art, a myriad of intimate scenarios takes place across the frenetic cityscape.

Other focal points included a life size fiberglass sculpture of a 100-year-old Jim Thompson sitting on a bench with his pet cockatoo, two video monitors playing juxtaposing animated shorts on Thompson as a puppet, wandering the streets of Bangkok in both the past and present, and a large cinema style billboard painting dramatising Thompson’s life and his recent adventures in Bangkok. Audience participation was extensive with visitors encouraged to post opinions on pin boards on characteristics of Bangkok that have been “lost” and “found”, play the Lost in the City board game, leave recorded phone messages for Jim Thompson in a public callbox, dial another phone and listen to a museum style description of cultural aspects “lost” and “found” to Bangkok, or to relax with a drink and read comics at the makeshift street cafe. The project also included workshops with Thai and international youths creating story books and puppet shows based on their experiences in Bangkok and the imaginative journeys of Jim Thompson. In collaboration with the Kae Dum Dum Puppetry Group, a youth oriented puppet show organised by workshop participants was presented on the last day of the exhibition to celebrate the 101^st birthday of Jim Thompson.

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