Montri Toemsombat: Artists Have a Responsibility

"During my studies, I realised what important work artists do and that they are responsible for the ideas and world view they pass on. I realised early on that art can also help others as well as yourself. I take that very seriously", tells Thai artist Montri Toemsombat in Senior Curator Marja Sakari’s interview.

You spent your childhood in the countryside as your parents are farmers. Could you tell something about your childhood?

I had an ordinary childhood in my home village in Chaiyaphum province in north-eastern Thailand. There, in the country, I learned about life as I saw and experienced it, with its joys and sorrows. In the country, it is much easier to break free from your home. I spent many a day in the fields, herding buffalo (herding was the children’s job at the time, and there were still lots of buffalo in the country), or I would climb a tree to dream or sing to forget the sorrows awaiting me down on the ground.

How did you decide to become an artist? Where there artists around you or was it just a very individual decision?

I remember vividly how my father, brother and sister taught me to draw. I immediately displayed a talent for drawing. In school, a teacher noticed that I was talented in visual arts and encouraged me to participate in small local competitions. When it was time to go to university, another teacher made me apply to the Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts at the Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. I submitted my application the very next day, which was the closing day for applications.

Your art has as its source some basic Buddhist ideas. Could you tell something about Buddhism influences in your artworks?

I was born in a country with a Buddhist culture. Although Thai Buddhism has many influences from animism and although the formal traditions include much superstition and rituals – quite contrary to Buddha’s teachings – Buddhist wisdom permeates deep into Thai society. The Buddhist influence is manifest in how the Thais act in everyday social life and in relation to other people, life and death. Buddhism as an ever-present and non-transcendental thought is a reliable tool for us to control sorrow and suffering.
My artworks are closely connected to my life and personal experiences, so Buddhism plays an important role as it is part of my mental makeup. I recently rediscovered the true depth of Buddhist thought and the benefits of meditation. It is a very efficient therapy that should be used more widely. In my art, I have tried to transmit some of this wisdom to help others.

You told me that you spent some time lately in a Buddhist monastery. Can you tell me a little bit about the daily programme and how your stay influences your art?

The Buddhist tradition encourages you to retreat to a monastery for a time. For instance, in Thailand, men are traditionally expected to don a monk’s habit and enter a monastery at least once in their life. A temple is an open building where you can seek haven whenever you need. People who retreat to monasteries have many reasons. They seek peace, want to engage in self-examination or gather their thoughts, solve inner conflicts, run away from family quarrels or the police, or study for free in schools led by the monks.
My experience at the temple was like a mental stocktaking, a "check-up" of the mind.

The daily rhythm was very strict. Wake up in the middle of the night, common prayer, searching for food, cleaning the temple, meditation, learning tenets. There was only one meal per day. Such discipline conditions you and helps you focus your mind on yourself. In the first meditation exercises you examine yourself and become aware of conditioning that curtails your body and mind. That is, the first aim is not the control of mind and instincts. Instead, the aim is reaching a state of awareness. First you have to accept that everything is relative and transient, and use that basis to learn that there are tools to deal with existential suffering and ill-being. If you want to, you can engage in spiritual work either with the help of the monks or by yourself and aim at attaining the awakening of the consciousness. You need to take the middle way, the path that is spiritually in the middle, where dualities become one and do not have a tendency to diverge. Spiritually, you should try to take the middle road, where the powers cancel each other, where nothing happens and where everything is possible.

Consciousness, attention, concentration and diligence are keys to open the gates of Buddhist wisdom. Buddhism is most of all work.

In the temple I realised that reaching the middle path is difficult and that I was not yet ready. Instead, I saw all the fundamentals of Buddhist thought in the nature surrounding the temple: transience, relativity, the pathetic power of life, which is only an illusion. Nature is a strong element in my art.

Does the meditation practice have a direct influence on what you are doing in your art?

Meditation is a way of improving your mind, but it is not an end in itself. Meditation helps you examine reality and see it as it is, transient, that is, an illusion. Meditation helps you see yourself, understand your mental schemas, become aware of the illusion of the ego and free yourself from its conditions. Meditation is manifest in my works as a means or a therapy I try to transmit. However, I do not believe that meditation has a direct effect on making art.

Next year you are going to apply for a residency in Paris. Do you think your work will change in Europe?

Like I said earlier, my art is based on my life. Now my life will continue in France. I will be there with my questions, doubts and conflicts. Science has proved that there is only one human species, so I will meet the same Homo sapiens in Paris.

I think the greatest difference in Western thought is linked with theist religions. Just as Buddhism unconsciously permeates Eastern thought, theist religions influence collective and individual behaviour. Christianity is based on temptation, immortality of the ego and the belief in absolute power. It gives rise to a temptation to create and destroy in turns. This leads to the undeniable cultural power in the Western world, which I find interesting.

I think that in the West I will examine different suffering and new manifestations of existential ill-being. I have an antidote for them.

You will be coming to Finland in May to prepare an installation of rice in Kiasma. Can you tell something about the new work?

The theme of the installation is duplication and moving on to the cycle of nature and culture. This concept is related to Buddhist tenets and it emphasises presence.

My work will focus on the significance of experiences, memories, repetition of practices and preservation of knowledge. Simultaneously, it will reveal the ultimate inefficiency of rituals and transcendentalism.
The architecture of the Room X inspired the concept for this installation. The shaft of light falling down from the ceiling gave me an impression of a cavern, pit or hole dug in the ground, ready to receive a seed. The objects in the installation represent presence, a treasure to be kept or a seed with a kernel that is supposed to germinate and sprout.

Meditating statues made of germinated rice seeds will, in practice, be hung side by side next to the wall directly under the skylight, which will recall Eastern caves with images of Buddha. The sound will be water falling drop by drop. This aims at creating an atmosphere suitable for meditation.

Marja Sakari
Senior Curator