THE LONGEST WAY ROUND IS THE SHORTEST WAY HOME: Nontawat Numbenchapol

The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home is Thai film director Nontawat Numbenchapol’s debut exhibition at Gallery VER, and his first-ever large-scale installation in an on-site gallery.

 

Echoing the idiom that suggests shortcuts are not, always, the best way, ‘The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home’ reflects on the complexities of the migratory life and on its precariousness, often endeavored without legal documents. Contrary to what may have initially appeared as a shortcut to a better life, the act of crossing the border, specifically from Myanmar to Thailand in ‘The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home’, manifests as an unsustainable choice. Systematically marginalized, immigrants often have no other options than limited freedom, or to return to the homeland.

 

Focusing on Shan laborers in Chiang Mai, the ethnographical framework of ‘The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home’ incorporates Numbenchapol’s observations and on-site research by way of unique footage shot in the inlands of Myanmar to trace the journey of a young man as he returns, after six years, to his village in the Shan State to visit his family and to process his much-needed national identity documents.

 

Filmed alone without accompanying crew, Numbenchapol’s footage serves as a collection of visual field notes that reveal the protagonist’s views on his migratory life, the pain of leaving behind his homeland, and his expectations while embracing a new life across the border. At the same time, the footage fuels larger questions of belonging and unbelonging to one’s own homeland and on the meaning of identity, social or otherwise, in the making of an individual.

 

Encompassing immersive video and sound installations, as well as photography and mixed-media works, ‘The Longest Way Round is the Shortest Way Home’ aims to facilitate dialogues on contentions of inclusion, exclusion and societal acceptance across Southeast Asian borders, while also establishing the foundation for Numbenchapol’s ground research on Shan laborers in Chiang Mai for a feature-length film on the same topic.