Som Supaparinya

The Rivers They Don’t See

Som Supaparinya’s first institutional solo exhibition in Germany focuses on rivers as politically, socially, and ecologically charged landscape elements. Supaparinya’s works analyze how economic expansion, governmental interventions, and global infrastructure projects not only alter the courses of rivers but deeply impact local populations.

Central to the exhibition is the video work The Rivers They Don’t See (2024), which reveals the interconnections between water usage, political control, and ecological consequences. Supaparinya combines documentary research with experimental visual strategies, employing media such as video, photography, installations, and sculpture. Using the Ping River as an example—whose course has increasingly been altered by economic interests and state interventions—Supaparinya makes visible the intertwined realities of environmental destruction, political control, and human resilience.

In her artistic practice as a cartographer, she explores the complex social history of Thailand and Southeast Asia, employing a documentary approach that integrates visual and auditory media. Her works demonstrate that landscapes are not neutral spaces but sites of political negotiation, in which ecological interventions remain inseparably linked to colonial history and capitalist expansion to this day.

The exhibition is curated by Natalie Keppler and Alexander Wilmschen in collaboration with the DAAD Artists-in-Berlin Program.