Political performance art gets down and dirty

Architect Duangrit Bunnag keeps pledge to let people pelt him with poop if Pheu Thai teams up with army ‘uncles’

No one can accuse Duangrit Bunnag of not keeping his word, after a down-and-dirty exhibition of political performance art in Bangkok on Saturday.

Mr Duangrit, a renowned architect, artist and social media gadfly, was making good on a pledge he made earlier while commenting on the political drama surrounding the formation of the new government.

Specifically, he was expressing dismay at the prospect of the Pheu Thai Party teaming up with army-backed parties, in particular the Palang Prachrath Party led by Gen Prawit Wongsuwon — despite a campaign pledge to never do so.

“If the Pheu Thai Party joins hands with PPRP, I will allow you all to throw faeces at me,” he told his followers on X, as Twitter is known these days.

Those followers took him at his word, and after a few days of back-and-forth tweets about the how and where, he arranged to meet them outside the Mirror Art Gallery in Lak Si district on Saturday afternoon.

Clad in a hazmat suit and full-face mask, Mr Duangrit made good on his promise, kneeling on a white tarpaulin as people threw cow manure at him.

“I want to communicate through art,” said one anonymous poop-tosser, dressed in overalls and wearing an eerily realistic mask of Gen Prawit, before stepping up to pelt Mr Duangrit with dung.

Gen Prawit was among the architects of the 2014 coup that removed Pheu Thai from power and installed a junta-backed administration that governed for the next nine years.

Mr Duangrit, 57, is a longtime Pheu Thai supporter and member of the Creative Action for Revival and People Empowerment (CARE) group led by Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai.

“Duangrit had faith in a political party, but that party wasn’t taking their word seriously,” the poop-tosser in the Prawit mask told reporters.

“Duangrit had to receive the shit on behalf of them.” (Story continues below)

A participant in a Prawit Wongsuwon mask takes aim at Duangrit Bunnag during Saturday’s political performance art event. (Photo: AFP)

Health concerns

Mr Duangrit declined to speak to reporters — who warily pressed him for comment after he had been sprayed clean by an industrial hose.

“Only this will let me live in my life in the freedom to be, freedom to act,” he said in a statement ahead of the show.

A medical team was on standby, with an ambulance whisking Mr Duangrit away following the show.

“I tried to prohibit it, but I failed,” Dr Tosaporn Serak told AFP, adding he had warned the architect there were health risks.

But he acknowledged there was no stopping him, adding that while he did not approve, “it’s OK, he has kept his promise”.

Others, like 67-year-old Aud, were adamant that this was the right action after Mr Duangrit’s pledge.

“In the end the politicians broke their promises, they shook hands with them, prolonging the dictators’ power,” he said.

“Duangrit said that if it actually happened, we would accept shit being thrown at us. That’s why we are here.”