Pecos, New Mexico
Performance Art, Social Practice

This project stemmed from a tweet in which former president Trump targeted four congresswomen of color to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.” Such xenophobic rhetoric has ruptured past wounds of those who were also told to “go back” at some point in their lives—Nuttaphol Ma was one of them. In response, he began to question the relationship between the US flag and the pledge of allegiance to the flag. The work chronicles a convergence of his durational public stitching of an altered flag and a series of participatory workshops that guide participants to a reconsidered pledge that creates a sense of home for all, echoing our collective voices of belonging. These temporal moments will live in an artist book form which will be gifted to workshop participants and distributed to policy makers and advocacy groups in New Mexico and beyond. Additionally, ephemera from this work will be presented as an installation at cultural institutions and community centers nationwide.

“How can I make work about life if I do not live?” This question profoundly affects Nuttaphol Ma’s creative practice. He moves with sound awareness, taking notes of the mundane, the patterns and sequences from his dreams, past, present and unfolding day. He connects these seemingly disconnected recordings to compose stories about longing, loss, memory, resilience, and the labor of adapting to a new home. They are presented in diverse forms including installations, participatory workshops, and public interventions of contentious spaces through performances. Conversations and reflections arise from the temporal works and are recorded as artist books, essay films, and storytelling.