This much-anticipated online piece from boundary-breaking director Apichatpong Weerasethakul makes its debut as the first artist commission on the Walker Channel. The source for live and archived video of the Walker’s public programming, the Walker Channel includes lectures, dialogues, and performances involving artists, scholars, and critics of contemporary art and culture.
Weerasethakul’s short video Cactus River (Khong Lang Nam) (2012, video, 10:09 minutes), under discussion since he was the subject of a Regis Dialogue and Retrospective in 2004, has been created amid a packed schedule of projects—one that’s only grown more intense since his feature film Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives won the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 2010. The artist was included in the exhibition dOCUMENTA 13 and has recently completed the feature film Mekong Hotel, which also screens at the Walker.
Walker film curator Sheryl Mousley calls Weerasethakul an ideal choice for the multidisciplinary institution’s first Walker Channel commission: “His ability to mix genres—experimental, narrative, documentary—is only part of his distinctive vision,” she says. “He’s also so accomplished in both old and new media: besides films, he makes objects, video installations, and exhibitions, and integrates his vision across those art forms, always with amazing results.”
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