Hazy caked-eye greetings from the land of post-celebratory, self-induced ethanol poison recovery. The Lanna Style International Design Workshop at the Faculty of Fine Art at Chiang Mai University is done and this was celebrated in the true fashion of chaos that has become wont and custom in the past two weeks. As promised in my presentation yesterday, a more succinct summary of my jittery rambling is here for your perusal, critique and eventual polemics. More pictures of the prototypes will be posted once the photos are taken for the catalogue. gimme about two weeks…

Über-props to my fellow doodlers and nocturnal voyageurs of the Chiang Mai underworld, especially Ofer and Lek, Masamichi, Chikako and their assistants Paek and Atsushi. I want to write something sincere and heartfelt but fear trite cliché would surely result. Perhaps sleep is a better idea…
So here’s what yesterday’s talk would have sounded like if I wasn’t paralysed with irrational fear, although it’s still quite rough. Forgiveness please.
if you were at the museum yesterday and didn’t notice my stuttering mouth or shaky hands, forget I mentioned it…..Cheers.

Final Presentation Of Prototypes.
October 14, 2006.
Chiang Mai Art Museum.
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Faculty members, fellow artists and designers, students and guests;
Good afternoon and once again thank you for giving me this opportunity to work with you and absorb the virtues and sensibilities of Lanna culture.
I have always been interested in the history of this region, and this workshop has given me the opportunity to immerse myself to a level beyond that of a tourist or a casual observer.
My artistic background really did solidify in Asia and I feel very connected and empathetic to Asian philosophies and attitudes; so I was quite comfortable with the task of planting a viticultural tree of expression here, grafting my own subjective tastes and aesthetics onto the strong and ancient trunk of Lanna.
In my research and observations over the last few weeks, many things stood out to me as signature traits of the Lanna region, which to my surprise, incorporates lands as far as the Shan state in Burma, eastwards into Laos and even Yunnan province in China.
The particular craving for sticky rice and its subsequent effects on the attitudes of the people was fascinating. It really explained a lot of what I had been perplexed by until now. Perhaps this starchy staple is solely responsible for the languid pace of life we can see here.
The agrarian regimen of two rice crops a year came as a surprise as well. The socio-political framework of rural life was more complex than I expected, with quite specific traditions and attitudes to family life.
It has been interesting to see how all the participants cultural backgrounds and work field has influenced their direction in this project, and I am no exception. My background and field of interest are very much present in this work.
My interests in art, culture and travel are usually geared to the intellectual constructs that a culture creates and evolves over time as religion, philosophy and art. These mental maps, I find, are directly influenced by their geographical environment and climatic conditions, especially when it comes to the problem of representing noumenal concepts beyond the intellect. This is particularly true in the Kingdom of Lanna.
Religions around the world can be seen on one level as the result of environment. The Hindu pantheon of anthropomorphic, blue skinned, elaborately adorned, pacific deities can possibly be attributed to favourable agricultural conditions and the appreciation of the majestic landscape of the sub-continent. Male and female energies are representative of the ebbs and flows of cosmic energy and are present with Shiva, Shakti, etc. On the ground, the land is fertile and bellies are full. The cycles of nature are directly observable. The Gods are in favour, and thus appear so as baby Krishna smiles and Ganesh bestows a quiet benevolence.
The Patriarchal vengeance monster of the Judeo-Christian tradition, on the other hand, is a judge and punisher. Something to be feared, a fascist despot with a checklist. What would one expect from a desert culture where conditions were harsh and unforgiving?
Our Gods are a direct abstraction of our living conditions.
This pseudo-theory of mine is not so cut and dry in Lanna, but I can still see it. The most striking example for me is the continuity between the temple motifs and the flora of the jungles and forests.
We can see architectural experimentation with Indian and Chinese influence throughout the epochs, eventually maturing into a style that is uniquely Lanna.
Agriculturally speaking, this is a region of plenty. The abundance of rice that the farmers are capable of producing assures a comfortable lifestyle. The sagacious Gautama, seated and sated under a bodhi tree is an apt symbol for the Lanna people to relate to, I think.  The slow moving sticky rice eaters can perhaps empathize with the static practice of meditation. Who would have thought that the slow digestion of starch could be the catalyst for religious preference?
The temple architecture and layout of the grounds are borrowed from Hindu cosmology; and the ever-present lotus splayed figure is also an Indian export. Still, the Lanna people have idiosyncratically built their houses of worship in their own visual vernacular through centuries of trail and error.
The tenets of Buddhism are widespread in Asia, and every culture has their own twists on the theme but for me, here in Thailand, it was the first time to really observe a functional amalgam between Buddhist imagery and the Animsitc totems of the indigenous tribes. This exists in Japan to a degree between ch’an/Zen and the native religion of Shinto, but it appears to me as dissociated in these post post-modern times. Usually Japanese wedding ceremonies are Shinto whereas funerals are Buddhist. It may be naïve, but it strikes me as appropriate, being that animism is more nature based, conscious of regenerative cycles and therefore concerned with life here and now, whereas Buddhism places a great deal of attention on death and the preparation for the event, therefore much more suitable for a funeral ceremony. Those practical Japanese!!
The two ideologies seem to exist side by side, but not crossing over as much as is seen here.
The area known as Lanna is a confluence of the cultures that surround it, and this came as a bit of a surprise to me. I suppose the borrowing of dogma, cosmology and architectural styles created a culturally creative atmosphere when it came to fusing the nearby influences into an identity unique to the Lanna region..
Nature itself is an object of worship and reverence in animistic culture as I understand it, and the people’s deep knowledge of their immediate environment has translated beautifully into the metaphysical maps that are the temples of the Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai and Lampang regions we visited.
The curves and swirls that our eye follows in the jungles of Indo-China are unmistakable, from here to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, these tendrils identify the landscape and this vegetative attribute has found its way into the designs and motifs that adorn these monastic structures.
To say it simply, with my two prototypes, I want to express the happy neighbouring of the sacred and the profane in Lanna – to show how the two schools of though blend together instead of exisiting side by side in quiet tolerance.
I love the curves of Thai art. A distant precursor to the delicate balance of art nouveau, no other style seems to create such deceptive simplicity in their imagery. Just go and try do draw something similar and you’ll realize that a slight variation destroys the whole feeling. This is meticulous and specific work.
It is this basic concept of this upwards and outwards, slightly spiralic whisp – ubiquitous in religious and secular locations alike, always beautifully balanced on a cusp between our physical and spiritual worlds, that I chose to represent in the design for the lamp.
Aside from the embellishment of the empirical and metaphysical tendrils manifest in the lamp design, two very simple line arrangements greeted me with the familiarity of an old friend at almost every turn as I searched for geometric themes to use for the table.
The specific angles of the temple roofs were as obvious as the slant in Buddha’s eyes when it comes to summing up a Pan-Lanna motif.
The centre of the temple is a holy mountain at the centre of the macrocosmic universe, and the temple itself is a microcosmic apex for a spiritually inclined society. The roof keeps the rain off the Buddha’s head, and also shelters the hopes and dreams of the people who pray inside. The angles of the roof can be seen when the table is folded.
The Lanna people seem to have elaborate traditions, customs, idiosyncrocies and foibles when it comes to inter-family relationships in the home. The rituals of courtship with expectant daughters from local boys, the pomp and splendour of the ricehouses, the fatalistic privacy of the family bedroom where the ancestral shrine rests, even the consciencious offer of water to one’s fellow citizens outside the home make it quite clear that this is not a society of town squares.
Life decisions are made in the home that is the holy mountain of the social consciousness. This institution, like that of the monastic, has a simple combination of lines with further individual variations. The Galae that sits atop the junction of the traditional house is the calling card of the family. It was your address, phone number and status symbol all in one. This social foundation is the foundation of the table as well, directly represented by crossed legs. When the table is folded, or “at rest”, it takes on the shape of the temple, where serenity and non-action are sought. The table is folded down to become functional, and the legs take on the shape of the galae.
This is a piece for the home, and it’s the symbol of the Lanna home that it rests on, quite literally. It is made form Teak wood, the local lumber of choice, both for homes and temples, this is keeping in tune with the crossover principle that is the fulcrum of my work for this project.
The ease of blurring edges between domestic and religious custom is represented rather simplistically with the table design. It’s the movement of the object that is the link between the two themes. From activity to rest, from personal to supernal.
For me, these two symbols are the melting pot of Lanna boiled down to its essence.
On to practical matters about materials now. Before anything can be said, I must compliment the students who really made sure the complex lines of the lamp were accurate and the piece clocked in at an impressive production time. I cringe at the prospect of wrestling with the material myself. Perhaps I could have showed it to you next October. Nice one fellas.
As far as the basic principals of this project, how the traditional can relate to the modern, I attempted to create a traditional shape in modern materials with the base and curve of the lamp. The interlaced roots of the trees was the jumping off point.
The aluminum surrounding the light fixtures is a shape that was an attempt to mix my usual drawing style with traditional curves. It was creepy to see how much they had in common!
Aside from the characteristics discussed above, Lanna culture is also a culture of weavers. Kitchen receptacles, clothing and agricultural tools alike are made with various knots and woven materials. In keeping with this, all the light fixtures and aluminum pieces are “woven” into place with aluminum wire. There are no screws or glue. The old technique in modern materials, I guess.
The height of the lamp is on the small side, and so is the table. They are meant to function together in the environment of the living room of Lanna culture where no furniture at all is used, even today we are seated directly on or very close to the ground in a traditional setting. The table is lit with the bottom light, and one light is pointed upwards, further illustrating the middle world Lanna occupies between the immediacy of the earth and the fleeting wonders of the heavens. Maybe I should have designed a pillow as well to sit on while contemplating this idyllic vantage point on a sunny day in Lanna, slowly masticating sticky rice…

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