น้ำขึ้นแมนิเฟสโต้
I suppose it is frost on the ground
疑是地上霜

Description

2021年2月初，Facebook上有這麼一張照片——一張潦草地寫著「籠中的雨滴等待著洶湧的風暴。帶著愛和信念」的小紙片。這是泰國人權行動者和律師Anon NAMPA在他和他的戰友們多次申請保釋被拒後寫的一封信。儘管我們不知道該如何面對這些由被拘留的活動人士或外界為他們寫的大量紙條、信件和社交媒體帖子，但我們依然決定卷入這場風暴之中，並以其中的文字線索作為指引。

我們的項目名稱——「籠中的雨滴等待著洶湧的風暴」（ขังฝนเม็ดเดียว เขาจะเจอกับห่าฝน）——就來自Anon NAMPA充滿力量的話語。項目將翻譯2020年至2021年間政治活動家被拘留期間的各種言論。項目由拓展場域的寫作、編輯和出版平台ซอย | soi發起，由『漲潮』小組選擇文本並進行翻譯和編輯。「籠中的雨滴等待著洶湧的風暴」不是一個語錄，而是要與人聯合在一起時說出的話。《疑是地上霜》，是項目首次發起活動。

《疑是地上霜》是一部由文本、摘錄構成的合集，源於泰國政治的敵意氣氛。這些文本包括監獄的信件和探視記錄，它們用日常話語寫就，不一定是能喚醒民主的華麗詞藻，但也正是通過這些話語，他們得以穿行於情緒和感知的公域之中，喚起不同語境下實踐者的共鳴。

在「东南黑书众」項目（廣州，2021年）的背景下，漲潮小組的目的不是將信件作為展示對象，而是將其作為一個入口，使他們得以進入一個由重疊的時間、社會文化、語言或感知機制構成的文本映射網絡。他們的目的是從翻譯的行動中，或與其他活動家的對話中，來審視我們與這些信件的關係。他們也希望呈現這種關係中所遺留的文字痕跡。

It was a photo of a tiny piece of paper posted on Facebook in early February 2021 scribbled, ‘a raindrop caged awaits a raging storm. With love and faith,’ from a letter written by Thai human rights activist and lawyer, Anon NAMPA, after he and his comrades were denied bail after several attempts. It was these heaps of paper, letter, and social media post ‘by’ and ‘for’ detained activists. Even though we do not know exactly what to do with them, we decided to go into the storm, taking literary clues as a compass.

Derived from Anon NAMPA’s powerful utterance, ‘A raindrop caged awaits a raging storm’ (ขังฝนเม็ดเดียว เขาจะเจอกับห่าฝน) is a translation project of words circulated during the detention of political activists from 2020 to 2021. Initiated by ซอย | soi, a platform for writing, editing, and publishing in the expanded field, in collaboration with Namkheun Collective, the team selected, translated, and edited words from political activists delivered during 2020-2021. ‘A raindrop caged awaits a raging storm’ is not a corpus, but moments of utterance to be bound up with others. I suppose it is frost on the ground, a project by Namkheun Collective, is its first iteration.

I suppose it is frost on the ground is a collection of excerpts and textual products that emerge from the hostile climate of Thai politics. These are texts taken from prison letters and visitation notes. These are texts written as everyday utterances which do not necessarily evoke the rhetoric of democracy. It is from these utterances that we are able to sail across the international waters of sentiments and sensibilities.

Commissioned in the context of the BULLET TEXT project (Guangzhou, 2021), Namkheun aims to use these letters not as display objects in themselves, but rather as an entry point into a network of textual references across overlapping temporal, sociocultural, linguistic, or sensorial regimes. They aim to interrogate their own engagement with the letters, both through the act of translating and/or possible dialogue with other activists.

此處是電子版，印刷品於「東南黑書眾：字彈飛穿頁邊」（泛東南亞三年展；廣州，2021年）項目的裝置中展出。
This is a digital download, originally presented as a print installation for ‘BULLET TEXT: Piercing the Margins of Independent Publishing’ as part of the Trans-Southeast Asia Triennial (Guangzhou, 2021).

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Namkheun（น้ำขึ้น）意為 “漲潮”，是一個位於泰國曼谷的文學團體。Namkheun是兩個朋友之間多年來通過文字交流和電話閒談分享不滿的產物——我們一起對世界的現狀感到憤怒、一起分享備忘錄、未實現的夢想和個人見解。在2020年，Namkheun作為活動的延伸而出現，你也可以將它理解為一個開放的閒聊。

Translated as ‘Rising Tides’, Namkheun (น้ำขึ้น) is a literary collective based in Bangkok, Thailand. Namkheun is a product of disgruntled text exchanges and over-the-phone gossip sessions between two friends over the years. Together, we raged over the state of the world. Together, we shared memes, unfulfilled dreams, and personal insights. And so in 2020, Namkheun materialised as an extension of such activities, an open chat if you will.