After years of working in Paris, the artist Emsophian Benjametha (เอ็มโซเฟียน เบญจเมธา) moved back home. He’s originally from the countryside, in the southern-most part of Thailand where the large majority of Thais are Muslims – not Buddhists. There, he crafts art out of mud.
“My name is Emsophian Benjametha. This is my ceramic workshop and goat farm. When I was a young boy, my father used bricks from local factories.”
The soil in Pattani Provence, where Em grew up, lends itself to brick making. It’s not a dainty clay, like mud from northern Thailand near Chiang Mai. Instead, the clay in Pattani bubbles up and breaks the surface when it dries. It’s slightly rough to the touch and has an off-white color. But that doesn’t make Pattani’s clay any less valuable. In fact, appearances can be deceitful – like Em’s ‘ugly’ teapot.
“The black teapot is angular and twisted. Most people think it’s unattractive. But there’s beauty inside, because when you drink tea with friends, the teapot fosters the relationship. So the teapot proves that what’s inside is more important than the outside.”
Like almost all of his neighbors, Em is a devoted Muslim. He wears a long, now-greying beard, as the Prophet Muhammad is believed to have had. After the teapot, we come to a ceramic piece that resembles a vase. The neck is however too thin, to be able to set flowers in. Em tells me, it’s a jar, just for decoration. Looking closer, I notice that there are jagged, uneven lines on the ceramic of the jar. These fissures are dark at the base, but turn golden as they stretch up towards the neck.
“The cracked jar represents a verse in the Quran,” Em tells me. 17:81 reads وَقُلْ جَاء الْحَقُّ وَزَهَقَ الْبَاطِلُ إِنَّ الْبَاطِلَ كَانَ زَهُوقًا which translates into English as ‘The truth has now come and falsehood has vanished’. I ask Em, “If the teapot teaches that you can’t judge a person from the outside, you mean that the cracks in the jar reveal what lies below the surface?” Em simply smiles back and lets me think about it.
Then he shows me a large serving bowl which he calls “Nostalgia”. The wooden handle on the bowl’s lid takes the form of a mini banana with the ends pointing up. It resembles a Kolae, Pattani’s traditional fishing boat or maybe a crescent moon, a symbol of Islam.
It’s obvious that Em’s Pattani home is a spring of inspiration – from the local mud he crafts his art with, to his childhood memories which flow into his design to even his Muslim faith. “My motto is ‘From Clay, With Clay To Clay’. God created man from the soil. We are sustained from the earth, and some day we will die and return to the soil.”
Find out more about Emsophian Benjametha’s work here.
Far, far away from Bangkok is Thailand’s southern-most bookstore. It’s in Satun, right on Thailand’s southern border with Malaysia. The “Low Pressure Area” cafe is a small, one room affair. There’s, of course, coffee and a comfy couch to sit and read in. The coffee shop and independent publishing house are run by a prolific Thai author, Siriworn Kaewkan, and his wife, Beer.
Siriworn is Thailand’s only major ‘southern’ author. Most of Thailand’s authors and poets describe life in Bangkok or the Buddhist-influenced countryside, Siriworn sets his work in the “Deep South”. Here, Thai Muslims live alongside Thais from a Buddhist or even Chinese cultural heritage. Satun, where Siriworn is peaceful, but next door in the three “Deep South” provences, a low level war has been fought since 2004. Very few authors in Thailand focus their writing on this armed insurgency and try to understand the conflict through fiction.
“The Murder Case of Tok Imam Storpa Karde” is the first book by Siriworn that I read (translated by Marcel Barang). It’s set in a small rural town in a Muslim majority area of Thailand’s southern most provence. A prominent Thai-Muslim in the village is found dead. Nobody knows who did it, but there are enough motivations and suspicions to fill a novella. The book isn’t so much a story than an exercise in learning about the multiple interests in town. Who profits from war and who from peace? From policemen, to detectives to villagers – in the end, Siriworn doesn’t answer, “who done it” but the reader has a better appreciation for the complexity of everyday life in Thailand’s “Deep South”.
Actually the situation in “Tanyong Baru” village is a test case which challenges the government and Thai people in the whole country. All sides must cooperate, must come to an understanding.” From The Murder Case of Tok Imam Storpa Karde
When I interviewed Siriwon, he mentions that he writes about society and politics – especially the “Deep South” conflict to try and understand what is happening there. He doesn’t seek to assign blame, but rather illuminate the problems and motivations for the conflict. Knowing who gains and who looses from the armed conflict make it easier to know how to find a solution to stop it.
Many of Siriworn’s other books are short stories and poems. But even when he isn’t writing about Thailand’s Deep South, he seems to still be interested in conflict between people. For example, his short story set on the southern Thai island of Koh Lanta, at the time of the tsunami in 2004.
“I thought about war and conflicts in various parts of the world.” from Lanta, Carrie May and Me
Siriworn says that every place in this world needs writers, especially countries like Thailand. Of course, he points out that the government doesn’t like too many writers and thinkers speaking directly to the people. Sirikorn says, he doesn’t judge what is right or wrong but rather tries to challenge people to think anew about old problems. To shake things up.
LOW-PRESSURE AREA
9:00 949 Moo. 4 Yontrakarnkhamthorn Road, Khongkhud, Satun
(Across the highway from Big C)
OXLAEY