Beauty on the Golden Sky

Beauty on the Golden Sky

March 22 - May 3, 2025

At Head High Second Floor, Chiang Mai

Researching the state’s destruction of memory of the 1932 Siamese Revolution, Charinthorn was fascinated by photographs of women from that era. At the dawn of democracy, when the sky was golden and the people had seized power, Miss Siam, a national beauty pageant held as part of the Constitution Day celebrations, showed the development of women’s rights in Thailand in the modern era, a crucial time when women began to have the right to vote, were free to pursue education and careers, and were liberated from the conventions of the old regime.

But their stories were lost. After the People's Party collapsed in a 1947 coup, the Constitution Day celebrations were abolished, and beauty contests lost their political meaning and connection to the revolution. Monuments and buildings built by the People's Party were gradually demolished. As Benedict Anderson puts it, "A profound change in consciousness brings about a characteristic forgetting." To instill new memories in the people, the Siamese Revolution was portrayed as premature, a tainted act, an indelible mark on history.

‘Beauty in the Golden Sky’ is a photographic poem created by Charinthorn to celebrate women during the Siamese Revolution. Using the Kintsugi technique, the Japanese art of restoring ceramics with gold, she paints gold splotches on photographs to challenge the state-written history of the nation and revive lost cultural heritage. Each piece of gold leaf is applied with respect to the history and women of the era, making her gold splotches both a symbol of resistance and a hope to bring back the golden sky.