This is a complete U-turn from my last post about the do's and don'ts of what to charge for tutoring in Bangkok.
The most eldritch, vomit-inducing and captivating experience I have ever had. Take a trip to Siriraj Medical Museum for two to three hours and you won't ever forget it; In fact you may want to gouge your eyes out. Though, for those sick, twisted, or even those purely fascinated by the sciences behind human dissection, this is the place for you!
For some international artwork including paintings, jewelry making, illustrations, digital media and more, you should head downtown to inner city Bangkok along Charoen Krung Road, which acts as the spinal chord for the underground scene of artwork.
If you want Siriraj, you can skip this section and fast-forward below. However I want to give readers the chance to understand that these pictures and all of my writings are not for the weak stomached. (I shouldn't be talking with how many times I end up on the toilet from slightly spicy Thai food.) Please be aware, you are giving your consent to me by scrolling or reading below. I do not advise anyone under the age of 18 to read or view without parental consent. Aka, please don't blame me for anything!
I will start with the an urban arts festival with artwork from around the world, all centered in the heart of Bangkok. This art scene is run by Bukruk. Center city's skeleton of private and small galleries are filled with a ton of artwork that coordinate together for 10 days. You can hop down the river side while drinking some brew as you go. Some art galleries are listed below with some short experiences I had and some pictures. I'm sure many of these galleries are obviously open year round, but hopefully I can provide at least a little insight on what type of things you'll find.
You can take a look at their facebook group www.facebook.com/bukrukfestival with the hashtag #BUKRUKFESTIVAL. Their website is www.bukruk.com
Also here is a promotional video they had for this year's festival. I must say I wish I had gone out more than what I had. Life of a busy American, student-loan paying, English teacher, I guess?
To start off I'll explain the map and brochure. All the galleries are mainly along, or don't veer far from, Charoen Krung Road. I would say the best location to start is by the Saphan Taksin BTS station. This is where numbers 1 and 10 are on the map. Now, this map is a little rough on the eyes because there are two sets of numbers. One is in black and the other is in a dark green. Poor choice on their part. However it is just this month's edition, January 2016.
The brochure gives a ton of information from wall art around Bangkok, galleries, exhibitions (Current), a music festival, animation nights, artists talks, and projection mapping.
Here are a few snaps of the brochure itself:
This place had a very quiet, independent vibe. The first floor had nothing to view, so my friend and I actually thought it was not open. However, we were told that the upstairs had some work on display. There was also a short film being shown on the top floor. Sweet!
One artist featured was Kult, a Bangkok street artist. He creates portraits and busts with little facial feature precision. It's almost as if the artist had blurred the identity of these people, including the three-dimensional pieces. These gallery was definitely not a bust. (Bust, hehe.)
The film that was being shown was an experimental piece from Montreal titled, "You Look Like Me". This video sprayed a series of lines, shapes, colors, and sounds at the viewers. The immediate thought is chaos. Throughout the video, a voice-over saying "You look like me" repeats itself while sandwiched with other phrases belonging to different racial classes around the world. The video slowly reveals a face being formed through all the lines and shapes. It seems that this pieces attempts to pressure one to think about the personal perspectives or prejudices placed on people due to race.
This gallery had a very quiet night. I was the only person roaming the isles in this small yet satisfying gallery. The gallery featured Greek and Romanian artists, Aitch, Saddo, and Fikos. This gallery shows a variety of mediums from oil, watercolor, woodblock and photography. The gallery is usually dedicated to rich, cultural and historical pieces of work, focused on the land mass between India and China. Some of the Greek and Romanian works were shot below:
Lastly, some smaller galleries where artwork can be found is at the Chatajuk / Chatachuk / Chatuchak / Jatajuck / or however anyone else wants to spell this market!
This market happens every Saturday and Sunday right near the Mo Chit BTS station. Head over to Section 7 (The far right on the market map) for some really cool and indie artwork. There aren't many lots but they have some pretty neat things to look at. This is a fantastic and easy location for local artists to sell their work, and usually cheaper than other places. If you get tired or want to do something else, there are some small bars between the nooks and crannies. Or, shop! You are at a market!
You can give it a quick "google" search and find many pictures as well. However none will come with my detailed and "Too-Much-Information" descriptions. So my journey began with my lovely girlfriend. We arrived at the hospital and used a voucher (Usually happens yearly for a limited time. The voucher itself cost around 200 Baht, but gives access to multiple museums in a few short months around the new year. Approximately valid from October 31 to December 31. These are the dates that were used for 2015. Also, the catch is that you could only purchase the museum pass for a limited time in October.) See the pictures below for details and examples.
The Siriraj Medical Museum is Be sure to ask for a map of the different locations in the medical center. The campus holds a number of buildings that you have access to. I walked in to the clean and educational room with displays full of infections and diseases. This was not as bad as I had expected. It was a little gross, but it was fair for what I had expected. I began to get a little more upset as I walk by babies with deformations. I was able to gut it. These babies look like a pale, semi see-through skin, sometimes stitched, Chuckie dolls. If anyone has ever gone to an aquarium where they used to sell baby sharks in bottles; this kind of reminds me of that. You can see the parts of skin that have fallen, or floated, off the body. If you were to tap the glass, you can see the rumble and shake from contact. Quite disturbing at times.
Keep walking through to see babies with two heads, or deformations. These are obviously kept for scientific use and study.
This is nothing compared to what you will see next...
I've already lost track of where I am in this medical center. I find myself walking into another room, which almost looks like it should be off boundaries. I look in the distance on the dirty tiled floors and see shelves full of bones and human body parts. Nothing that makes me want to throw up, until I turn my head and look through the window. I see a man, a doctor? Maybe a student? Maybe just a worker preparing the next visual masterpiece. Not being able to tell what was happening, I glimpse through the unguarded windows and doors to this butcher shop. The man has a large lump of, meat? Slaps it down on the table and rolls it, plays with it, and preps it. I'm still unsure of what it was, but it was dark red, and he had nothing but gloves and a mask on handling this mass of plump.
I continued down to find myself looking at an antique style piece of furniture with a glass door and wooden frame, holding a skeleton. This time I do tap the glass. The skeleton shakes as its head is holding it up leaning against the door. This poor skeleton and soul have to be close to its next fall. One tap too hard and you'll have another pile of bones.
"I swear officer! I did not kill him!"
It makes me feel even more uneasy when I realize I'm breathing the same air that this set of bones is breathing, and has been breathing for who knows how long. The glass has holes and cracks, even worse condition than any normal piece of old furniture. The small description next to the body writes that he was a convicted rapist.
I'm suddenly full of rage and no longer want to breath the same air that touches this skeleton, no because of disgust of human remains, but because of disgust of this person's character.
Thats besides the point though.
I keep walking through and begin counting all the different things I see. Photos, skulls, bones, hearts, fingers, hands, legs, ears, eyeballs, brains, etc. All of these are displayed slightly dirty shelves and have short descriptions of where or what they came from. Many were from accidents, such as fires or motor accidents. These were filled with details, like "man run over by truck" or "shotgun blasts to the chest and face".
Time for some fresh air. I feel a bit uneasy and somewhat down. I feel sad. Learning about all of these people, real people, and observing their remains makes me feel horrible about myself. I do know that some of this is meant for medical use, but why am I looking at it then? Why do I have access? This is not for medical, this is for show and profit. Are these being used by students? How often? These are the thoughts as I walk outside breathing the cleaner (but not so clean) Bangkok air.
I enter my next building.
Have you ever cleaned your house before? Weird question... let me re-phrase that. Have you ever bleached your house before? That strong vibrant smell is what this place smelled like. Only add about 10,000 gallons of dried blood and mounds of carcass. If you ever watched Breaking Bad, and can recall the scene of disposing the body in acid. That pool of acid and blood. That is exactly what I imagined the smell would be like. This portion of the medical center seems to be off limits. One or two sections say we can not enter, as we see a medical center worker walk bye in far too little of protective clothing for how that place smelled. We are allowed to go up to the second floor. This building is older. The floors creek and the stairs crack with every light step.
I turn right down the dark, dreary, wooden hallway and find more figures on display. This time physically stacked on each other, ready to fall and shatter on the floor with one wrong step.
Turn right again, into a room. This room is like an extremely old antique shop with tons and tons of antiques like lamps, dressers, wardrobes, desks, tables and chairs all stacked super high. Now, replace all of those with bones and dried body parts. You have my current setting. Some even have the description and picture of those the bones belonged too. That was at least a bit more settling.
The next room was by far the most incredibly eerie place I've ever been in my entire life.
My first sight as I walk in is a shelf full of stacked babies of different size, age, and sex. Every child had different situations. Some had one eye, known as a "cyclops". Some had two heads, or three arms. If you can think of it, it was there. If you can't think of it, you'll be introduced to it. Coming face to face with tanks full of liquid and floating bodies was disturbing enough. How about walking through this room. I came this far and I needed to keep going.
How many of you had a friend or family member, or even yourself who lived in a home that had so much stuff in their basement or attic that they couldn't quite squeeze through without knocking something over? Yup, you got it. Thats this place. My shirt and pants had to have brushed against countless glass containers. These were not secured down at all. They were all open to touch freely if you desired. It says no photography and I assume its frowned upon to touch the enclosures, but there is no enforcement around you at all. I roamed around the room, being careful to not hit anything or anyone. When I say "anyone", realize myself and my girlfriend were the only live ones here.
I come up to three young children on the floor. All stitched from dissection. You can see the thread enter and exit the skin, pulling the cuts tight together. You can see the slices in the skin, and the particles floating in the liquid. You see the head and arms rock and shake in the water as you walk near them. This was no where near what I expected. I expected the bodies, the gore or even the shocking images. I did not expect myself, me, the visitor, to be affecting the way these bodies lay in their grave. I felt wrong taking pictures, though I snapped a few of some that were a little more easy on the eyes than the others.
These children have been shown respect. You look down and along the line of bodies you have toys and gifts. People show their respects by giving the children toys. Their spirits are believed to appreciate this. It's such a hard site, because this wasn't just a visual, it was physical.
Literally, every step you took was a deciding factor of how these humans lay in their grave.
Lastly, after crawling through the stacks of different time periods of abortions, I came across the two full human body dissections. One male and one female. They were preserved and carefully cut to show different portions of tissue. From skin to organs and bones, all were shown with precision. Careful though, if you were to step too close you can see the entire body shake, and can watch the short hair sway in the waves. In the picture below you can see the abortions and unborn/premature born babies. Towards the top right you can see the foot of the male, full figure, body. I chose not to take any more pictures after this. I felt that I was being disrespectful and I even feel a bit harsh about posting these images. Maybe with a little time I will remove them. Technically, we are not allowed to take any pictures, though the enforcement is at an all time low. There are also many pictures already online of some of these figures. I guess mine give a different angle?
I was walking through one large Frankenstein museum, I can't help but imagine that this place is not being run properly. My take is that if it were to be open for general public, then make it safer. I can't imagine what some of those smells were. I'm no scientist but, lets make it sanitary, eh?
Would I go back?
I am not sure I would go back, but I definitely do recommend it as it gave me insight on a few more things that I wouldn't have even thought about before.
Well, thats it for the arts of Bangkok and the creepiest place on planet Earth. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you missed my last post on tutoring in Bangkok, and are looking what to charge students, feel free to check it out! http://theventureon.blogspot.com/2015/12/so-how-much-no-not-for-that-hooker.html
If you get stuck in a mound full of bodies, push through the smells and Venture On!
The most eldritch, vomit-inducing and captivating experience I have ever had. Take a trip to Siriraj Medical Museum for two to three hours and you won't ever forget it; In fact you may want to gouge your eyes out. Though, for those sick, twisted, or even those purely fascinated by the sciences behind human dissection, this is the place for you!
For some international artwork including paintings, jewelry making, illustrations, digital media and more, you should head downtown to inner city Bangkok along Charoen Krung Road, which acts as the spinal chord for the underground scene of artwork.
If you want Siriraj, you can skip this section and fast-forward below. However I want to give readers the chance to understand that these pictures and all of my writings are not for the weak stomached. (I shouldn't be talking with how many times I end up on the toilet from slightly spicy Thai food.) Please be aware, you are giving your consent to me by scrolling or reading below. I do not advise anyone under the age of 18 to read or view without parental consent. Aka, please don't blame me for anything!
With that being said, I present to you:
Bangkok Art Galleries
I will start with the an urban arts festival with artwork from around the world, all centered in the heart of Bangkok. This art scene is run by Bukruk. Center city's skeleton of private and small galleries are filled with a ton of artwork that coordinate together for 10 days. You can hop down the river side while drinking some brew as you go. Some art galleries are listed below with some short experiences I had and some pictures. I'm sure many of these galleries are obviously open year round, but hopefully I can provide at least a little insight on what type of things you'll find.
You can take a look at their facebook group www.facebook.com/bukrukfestival with the hashtag #BUKRUKFESTIVAL. Their website is www.bukruk.com
Also here is a promotional video they had for this year's festival. I must say I wish I had gone out more than what I had. Life of a busy American, student-loan paying, English teacher, I guess?
To start off I'll explain the map and brochure. All the galleries are mainly along, or don't veer far from, Charoen Krung Road. I would say the best location to start is by the Saphan Taksin BTS station. This is where numbers 1 and 10 are on the map. Now, this map is a little rough on the eyes because there are two sets of numbers. One is in black and the other is in a dark green. Poor choice on their part. However it is just this month's edition, January 2016.The brochure gives a ton of information from wall art around Bangkok, galleries, exhibitions (Current), a music festival, animation nights, artists talks, and projection mapping.
Here are a few snaps of the brochure itself:
Black Number 1: Bridge Art Space (Bottom right)
This place had a very quiet, independent vibe. The first floor had nothing to view, so my friend and I actually thought it was not open. However, we were told that the upstairs had some work on display. There was also a short film being shown on the top floor. Sweet!One artist featured was Kult, a Bangkok street artist. He creates portraits and busts with little facial feature precision. It's almost as if the artist had blurred the identity of these people, including the three-dimensional pieces. These gallery was definitely not a bust. (Bust, hehe.)
The film that was being shown was an experimental piece from Montreal titled, "You Look Like Me". This video sprayed a series of lines, shapes, colors, and sounds at the viewers. The immediate thought is chaos. Throughout the video, a voice-over saying "You look like me" repeats itself while sandwiched with other phrases belonging to different racial classes around the world. The video slowly reveals a face being formed through all the lines and shapes. It seems that this pieces attempts to pressure one to think about the personal perspectives or prejudices placed on people due to race.
Want some good asian food? Sorry, no food. Only drinks and some soy sauce!
Black Number 5: Soy Sauce Factory
I walk in to this gallery and immediately feel the fine arts presence. It's as if I am gallery hopping in Chelsea, in New York. This gallery has a small bar, with a relaxed and cool vibe allowing for open discussion about the artwork at hand. The featured artwork of this time was by Lolay. This artist explores the possibilities of physical features of a person having any correlation with how they act.
Next up on the list of galleries:
Black Number 6: Speedy Grandma
Back in the deep soi (street) along Charoen Krung soi 28, Speedy Grandma is a well known hot spot for the arts and drinks crowd. This place had bumping music, a small bar, and graphical artwork. The artwork displayed below is from a Thai comic book. The walls were decorated well with black and white illustrations using a silhouette theme. If you want to strike up a conversation with another art goer, then turn your shoulder and find yourself in a bass music driven conversation, this is the place for you. If you are looking for a quick art fill, you can roll in and roll out within fifteen to twenty minutes. That is including a 5 minute beer in your left hand.
My personal favorite of my night in the galleries:
Black Number 3: Serindia Gallery
This gallery had a very quiet night. I was the only person roaming the isles in this small yet satisfying gallery. The gallery featured Greek and Romanian artists, Aitch, Saddo, and Fikos. This gallery shows a variety of mediums from oil, watercolor, woodblock and photography. The gallery is usually dedicated to rich, cultural and historical pieces of work, focused on the land mass between India and China. Some of the Greek and Romanian works were shot below:
Some of these works even showed a resemblance of the Crystal Period. (Well known for Picasso, cubism, geometric and minimalistic style.)
This gallery had an extremely kind and helpful staff that actually provided me with my map and gallery list. The artwork here was intriguing, the staff was kind, and it was very informative as to where to head next. I give the young lady working the desk some snaps for being a good host!
I primarily stayed on the black list rather than the dark green. The dark green seem to be more of the Bangkok wall art/street art list. You can also take a stroll on Talat Noi for some Bangkok Street art. This area is also known for some of the slums.
I have not yet gone there, but hope to soon. If I do, you can obviously expect a post.
This market happens every Saturday and Sunday right near the Mo Chit BTS station. Head over to Section 7 (The far right on the market map) for some really cool and indie artwork. There aren't many lots but they have some pretty neat things to look at. This is a fantastic and easy location for local artists to sell their work, and usually cheaper than other places. If you get tired or want to do something else, there are some small bars between the nooks and crannies. Or, shop! You are at a market!
I once again warn you all about...
The Siriraj Medical Museum
Keep walking through to see babies with two heads, or deformations. These are obviously kept for scientific use and study.
This is nothing compared to what you will see next...
I've already lost track of where I am in this medical center. I find myself walking into another room, which almost looks like it should be off boundaries. I look in the distance on the dirty tiled floors and see shelves full of bones and human body parts. Nothing that makes me want to throw up, until I turn my head and look through the window. I see a man, a doctor? Maybe a student? Maybe just a worker preparing the next visual masterpiece. Not being able to tell what was happening, I glimpse through the unguarded windows and doors to this butcher shop. The man has a large lump of, meat? Slaps it down on the table and rolls it, plays with it, and preps it. I'm still unsure of what it was, but it was dark red, and he had nothing but gloves and a mask on handling this mass of plump.
I continued down to find myself looking at an antique style piece of furniture with a glass door and wooden frame, holding a skeleton. This time I do tap the glass. The skeleton shakes as its head is holding it up leaning against the door. This poor skeleton and soul have to be close to its next fall. One tap too hard and you'll have another pile of bones.
"I swear officer! I did not kill him!"
It makes me feel even more uneasy when I realize I'm breathing the same air that this set of bones is breathing, and has been breathing for who knows how long. The glass has holes and cracks, even worse condition than any normal piece of old furniture. The small description next to the body writes that he was a convicted rapist.
I'm suddenly full of rage and no longer want to breath the same air that touches this skeleton, no because of disgust of human remains, but because of disgust of this person's character.
Thats besides the point though.
I keep walking through and begin counting all the different things I see. Photos, skulls, bones, hearts, fingers, hands, legs, ears, eyeballs, brains, etc. All of these are displayed slightly dirty shelves and have short descriptions of where or what they came from. Many were from accidents, such as fires or motor accidents. These were filled with details, like "man run over by truck" or "shotgun blasts to the chest and face".
Time for some fresh air. I feel a bit uneasy and somewhat down. I feel sad. Learning about all of these people, real people, and observing their remains makes me feel horrible about myself. I do know that some of this is meant for medical use, but why am I looking at it then? Why do I have access? This is not for medical, this is for show and profit. Are these being used by students? How often? These are the thoughts as I walk outside breathing the cleaner (but not so clean) Bangkok air.
I enter my next building.
Have you ever cleaned your house before? Weird question... let me re-phrase that. Have you ever bleached your house before? That strong vibrant smell is what this place smelled like. Only add about 10,000 gallons of dried blood and mounds of carcass. If you ever watched Breaking Bad, and can recall the scene of disposing the body in acid. That pool of acid and blood. That is exactly what I imagined the smell would be like. This portion of the medical center seems to be off limits. One or two sections say we can not enter, as we see a medical center worker walk bye in far too little of protective clothing for how that place smelled. We are allowed to go up to the second floor. This building is older. The floors creek and the stairs crack with every light step.
I turn right down the dark, dreary, wooden hallway and find more figures on display. This time physically stacked on each other, ready to fall and shatter on the floor with one wrong step.
Turn right again, into a room. This room is like an extremely old antique shop with tons and tons of antiques like lamps, dressers, wardrobes, desks, tables and chairs all stacked super high. Now, replace all of those with bones and dried body parts. You have my current setting. Some even have the description and picture of those the bones belonged too. That was at least a bit more settling.
The next room was by far the most incredibly eerie place I've ever been in my entire life.
My first sight as I walk in is a shelf full of stacked babies of different size, age, and sex. Every child had different situations. Some had one eye, known as a "cyclops". Some had two heads, or three arms. If you can think of it, it was there. If you can't think of it, you'll be introduced to it. Coming face to face with tanks full of liquid and floating bodies was disturbing enough. How about walking through this room. I came this far and I needed to keep going.
How many of you had a friend or family member, or even yourself who lived in a home that had so much stuff in their basement or attic that they couldn't quite squeeze through without knocking something over? Yup, you got it. Thats this place. My shirt and pants had to have brushed against countless glass containers. These were not secured down at all. They were all open to touch freely if you desired. It says no photography and I assume its frowned upon to touch the enclosures, but there is no enforcement around you at all. I roamed around the room, being careful to not hit anything or anyone. When I say "anyone", realize myself and my girlfriend were the only live ones here.I come up to three young children on the floor. All stitched from dissection. You can see the thread enter and exit the skin, pulling the cuts tight together. You can see the slices in the skin, and the particles floating in the liquid. You see the head and arms rock and shake in the water as you walk near them. This was no where near what I expected. I expected the bodies, the gore or even the shocking images. I did not expect myself, me, the visitor, to be affecting the way these bodies lay in their grave. I felt wrong taking pictures, though I snapped a few of some that were a little more easy on the eyes than the others.
These children have been shown respect. You look down and along the line of bodies you have toys and gifts. People show their respects by giving the children toys. Their spirits are believed to appreciate this. It's such a hard site, because this wasn't just a visual, it was physical.
Literally, every step you took was a deciding factor of how these humans lay in their grave.
Lastly, after crawling through the stacks of different time periods of abortions, I came across the two full human body dissections. One male and one female. They were preserved and carefully cut to show different portions of tissue. From skin to organs and bones, all were shown with precision. Careful though, if you were to step too close you can see the entire body shake, and can watch the short hair sway in the waves. In the picture below you can see the abortions and unborn/premature born babies. Towards the top right you can see the foot of the male, full figure, body. I chose not to take any more pictures after this. I felt that I was being disrespectful and I even feel a bit harsh about posting these images. Maybe with a little time I will remove them. Technically, we are not allowed to take any pictures, though the enforcement is at an all time low. There are also many pictures already online of some of these figures. I guess mine give a different angle?
I was walking through one large Frankenstein museum, I can't help but imagine that this place is not being run properly. My take is that if it were to be open for general public, then make it safer. I can't imagine what some of those smells were. I'm no scientist but, lets make it sanitary, eh?
Would I go back?
I am not sure I would go back, but I definitely do recommend it as it gave me insight on a few more things that I wouldn't have even thought about before.
Well, thats it for the arts of Bangkok and the creepiest place on planet Earth. I hope you enjoyed it!
If you missed my last post on tutoring in Bangkok, and are looking what to charge students, feel free to check it out! http://theventureon.blogspot.com/2015/12/so-how-much-no-not-for-that-hooker.html
If you get stuck in a mound full of bodies, push through the smells and Venture On!
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