Pim Sudhikam, Tripod vessel, 2024, Earthenware, Hand-built, Pit fired, 21x23x23 cm. Photo: Pim Sudhikam

Pim Sudhikam explores the bond between maker and place by remaking ancient Thai vessels from contemporary excavation clay, realigning history with the modern urban setting.

Pim Sudhikam is a long-standing Thai ceramic artist who uses clay to understand the modern condition. Her previous exhibition, Petrified Knots (Bangkok, 2021), featured seemingly easy-to-untangle knots rendered in fired clay, reflecting on insurmountable problems (see Messenger Through The Twilight: A clay apocalypse )

Her installation, “A Conversation with a Potter” (Bangkok Art Biennale, 2024), drew a connection between the ancient Baan Kao people from Western Thailand and modern Bangkok, specifically One Bangkok, a mixed-use development in the heart of Bangkok, where the work was exhibited. The Baan Kao artefacts are 4,000 years old, yet are made from the same fertile, clay-rich land on which the modern urban Thai capital is grounded. Pim Sudhikam combines a recreation of ancient three-legged pots with contemporary forms, suggesting the mechanical assembly of industrial gears—all from the same unchanging clay. All the works were hand-built and undecorated, creating the appearance of a unified archaeological display.

We ask Pim Sudhikam about the inspiration for this seminal installation.

✿ Can you say what inspired you to use clay from excavation sites?

I look at various ancient cultures where there were potteries. There’s a link between where clay is found and where pottery exists, probably because of the logistics and practicality. I’m impressed with that fact nonetheless . I sense the intense bondage between the maker-the place-the material-the making. Looking at my own practice, since being born, raised and living in an urban setting, I lack such bondage.

In the context of the Bangkok Art Biennale 2024 theme “Nurture Gaia”, I wanted to emphasise this connection. Therefore, I searched for workable clay in Bangkok and ended up with clay from excavation sites. Bangkok is built on paddy fields on the Chaophraya Delta. So my assumption was that there must be good clay somewhere down there. After a couple of tests from different locations, it proved to be correct. I took the clay from many locations. They are all earthenware and are slightly different colours after firing.

I don’t intend to use that clay for sustainable purposes, but for the meaning of it, more like the agency of material and place.

Then I started to look at the historical significance of the clay location, too. But that’s for my future projects.

✿ What are the forms you made based on?

The Tripod vessels are an imitation of vessels from the Baan Kao Neolithic civilisation in Thailand. I imitate them in order to make a conversation with whoever made those vessels. My hypothesis is that I would find insight through making the same objects in a similar manner. First of all, I was so impressed with how advanced the forms are. They were so well-made and of uniform thickness. The design, proportion and detail are intended. And so on. The more I imitate, the more I appreciate and read the form as self-ornament (angular wall, 3-legged).

For me to make hand-made, industrial-looking objects is to emphasise my desire to make things.

Then I want to transfer that language of form to my own design informed by my zeitgeist. I keep the forming technique hand-built and try to leave lots of production marks, i.e., fingerprints. I design forms that are self-ornamented (with many legs, hair, or fins, depending on how you want to call them), and the ornament is the structure at the same time. A pot with three legs became a pot with fins. The repetitive ribs are also based on industrial objects like heatsink, metal reinforcement structure and gears. For me to make hand-made, industrial-looking objects is to emphasise my desire to make things. And then I observed them deformed. And I am so intrigued. And that leads to the Remnant series.

About Pim Sudhikam

Pim Sudhikam is a contemporary Thai ceramic artist and educator whose professional practice utilises hand-built clay forms to investigate the complexities of the modern condition, often focusing on the deep connection between materiality, history, and place within an urban context. Trained as designer, her work, which has been featured in major exhibitions like the Bangkok Art Biennale, reinterprets ancient Thai vessels (such as the 4,000-year-old Baan Kao tripods) and blends them with contemporary industrial aesthetics. She is known for her conceptually driven installations that establish a dialogue between historical continuity and the enduring nature of the earth. Visit pimsudhikam.com and follow @psudhikam

Tags

ancient | ceramics | G41 | revival | Thailand