Taiki Sakpisit presents Dark Was the Night for his third solo exhibition at SAC Gallery, drawn from Blind Willie Johnson’s blues song of the same title.

Inspired by this melancholic lament, Sakpisit delves deeply into cosmic themes, planetary cycles, painful memories and traumas. The exhibition blurs the line between wakefulness and dreams.

In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager Golden Record, which carried the sounds that they considered to be the most beautiful and diverse ever created on earth, including Blind Willie Johnson’s ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground’. The effort was conducted to serve as an interstellar communication as well as an outreach from humanity to any extraterrestrial civilization.

Sound can connect us. Sonic waves have long been used by humans and animals to create images, such as in ultrasound, as well as for sensing surroundings as used by bats and dolphins. Sakpisit carefully explores this theme throughout the exhibition by drawing inspirations from the Voyager Golden Record and various other sounds and music. A two-channel video installation titled, Dark Was the Night (2024), closely examines the psyche and emotional state of a woman who is separated from her loved one. Though unable to physically reconnect with her kins, she can sense the connections through the metaphorical echoes, like the way a pregnant mother can connect with her child through the thump of heartbeats.

By referencing a wide range of visual, musical and cultural sources, Sakpisit also presents etching prints, photographs, and orbiting sculpture inspired by celestial themes, orbital motions, and the October 6, 1976 Thammasat University massacre, bridging the realms between the wake and the dream state.

At once lyrical and ambiguous, Sakpisit’s exhibition transports us to a state of hypnagogia – the consciousness between wakefulness and sleep. SAC Gallery invites our audience to navigate around the gallery, exploring the visions, sounds, and echoes of their memories, traversing between earth and space; dreams and realities; our own selves and those that we long for or have forgotten.

Lose yourself in Dark Was the Night and embark on a journey into an illusive world within the immersive environment of SAC Gallery. Join us for the opening reception this coming Thursday, May 9, starting at 5:00 pm on the 1st Floor of SAC Gallery.