The Sun Still Sets
The Sun Still Sets is a silent video of the sun setting on the skyline of Bangkok. A few birds fly by. An electronic billboard flickers. Nothing much happens. The sun glows; it casts an almost tropical pink light on the grey muted city below until it disappears as a globular red ball behind the sea of skyscrapers. The striking colours are the result of the thick smog of pollution – the effects of which are echoed on the filthy window through which the video is filmed.
The work was filmed in February 2020 and I wondered if anyone had the patience for an 8-minute silent film with only the subtlest of movement. Then we went into quarantine. Then the police knelt on the neck of George Floyd for eight minutes and forty-six seconds. The Sun Still Sets is an invitation to spend that same time in slow silence, a state that is increasingly rare in our media-polluted landscape.
