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Published on September 13, 2007

 Can we recycle memories like we do paper and plastic? Textile designer Jarupatcha Achavasmit - in an installation show "Recycled Memories" at the Japan Foundation art centre in Bangkok until September 27 - has stitched together the artefacts of her existence to give them a second life.

Flowers dry out, cleaning cloths are tossed aside and appointment books are forgotten once the day is past. Jarupatcha salvages these remnants awaiting the trash bin and refashions them into a self-portrait.

"The message is very personal," she says. "Right now everybody is recycling, but only material things. I'm wondering whether we can recycle something that's a non-substance. Old memories and experiences make me the person I am today. Why don't we bring them back?

"Just like in recycling, I deconstruct something that's worthwhile, something that holds good memories, like a dried flower, and reconstruct it. Weaving is a way of bonding, so I've put everything together in a new form."

Diary pages are lovingly sewn together in a raft of memories using silk or metallic yarn. Jarupatcha uses a small loom she bought in Britain, and then hand-weaves the components and suspends them in mid-air along barely visible threads. The installation as a whole evokes a room enclosed in fragile walls.

 "Memory is very delicate," she notes. "It's a fragment of the present and a fragment of the truth. But it can grow, transform, imitate and become something else - in any way you want it to. It's unstable and non-substantive, so it's hard to capture.

"This is why I'm exhibiting the pieces as if they're floating. They easily move whenever you touch them. And they could be lost anytime."

Jarupatcha teaches textile design at King Mongkut's Institute of Technology at Lad Krabang, where she earned her bachelor's degree. She got her masters at the University of Michigan and is now a PhD candidate in fashion and textile design at Central St Martin's College of Art and Design in London.

She's also studied both computer-aided design for weaving in the US and traditional Thai textile weaving with the residents of Ban Rai district in Uthai Thani.

Her passion for the craft is reflected in the work "Pica Pica! (Magpie's Collection)", an amalgam of yarns she collected over the course of a decade.

"The bird called the pica pica - the magpie - loves to collect bright objects and put them in its nest. I'm like a magpie because I love to collect yarn, even if it's all tangled up.

"I want to reuse what I've collected. I've woven disorganised and messy memories into neat and straight lines."

In "End of Our March" and "From Flowers to Trees", Jarupatcha has woven dried white roses and hydrangea with silk.

"These flowers were given to me by some important people, but a memory can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. When you have a bad memory you just want to get over it, but if it's good you want to go back and be there again. I've moved on, and I use these memories to drive my present. I'm happy with the way I am today."

Her lifestyle as a working woman is clear from "Todotoday", silk thread holding together shards from her 2003 appointment book.

"I always have a lot to do in a day, and I'm proud of all the women who are in charge of their lives. When I finished this piece, though, I got to thinking about women who have a different way of life, so I made 'Disturbed Dust', which is dedicated to all the housewives who cook and clean, who wait and worry."

This was formed with used rags from her house, which she cut into strips and wove together with expensive silk and gold thread.

"Some people accord housewives a lower status, but to me they're on a high level. What would a home be without somebody to take care of it? A cleaning rag may be worthless to some people, but to me it means a lot. We're all equally valuable, no matter what work we do."

This is no trendy recycling hype. Jarupatcha is a hands-on environmentalist. For her thesis she's researching sustainable development for hand-weaving production, and she's a project director for carpet maker Tai Ping's Royal Weave brand.

The rugs - which will be in stores by year's end - are being made from 100-per-cent hand-woven wool from New Zealand, and only remnants of carpets are used that the factories would otherwise throw away.

And Jarupatcha will join six others from around the globe at an Artists Summit in Kyoto in December where ideas will be discussed for using art to "make the world a better place".

The Japan Foundation art centre is on the 10th floor of the Sermmit Tower on Soi Asoke (Sukhumvit 21) and is open Monday to Friday from 9am to 7pm and on Saturday until 5pm. Call (02) 260 8560-4 or visit JFBkk.or.th.

Khetsirin Pholdhampalit

 The Nation