Bangkok journal 06

18th floor

Bird’s-eye view. 

Life in a hotel room perched high, noticing the minuscule movements of human existence below and the drifting clouds above.

Segments of lives.

A car leaving a parking lot. A delivery man zooming into an alley. A lady taking her dog out on a stroller. Someone hanging laundry on a balcony. A street vendor setting up for the evening before commuters get off the train.

As the construction noise gradually fades in sync with the diminishing sunlight, I think about the comfort of modern life, what it adds and takes away, from where and from whom. 

With a COVID infection, I spend several weeks in isolation and fatigued, going back and forth between the hotel and nearby malls. Late afternoons, I make drawings of the below sceneries. Monsoon rains punctuate the evenings with an atmospheric mist accompanied by the lively sounds of water landing on the rooftops and tropical leaves. Days pass through variations of the same scene, and in this mode of repetition, I find it possible to notice, feel and capture something different each time.