Tabula Rasa
2018 / 20 minutes 
Sound: Worramet Matutamtada
Commissioned by Korea Foundation

There is an abandoned temple hidden among the hills of Chainat province, 188 kilometers north of Bangkok, which was built 450 years ago in the Ayutthaya Kingdom and burnt down during the Burmese–Siamese wars. All that remains now are the ruins on the highlands, haunted by the myth of the wandering spirits of dead soldiers from the wars and a solitary monk who seeks tranquility within the emptiness of space.

The film Tabula Rasa attempts to represent a meditative state of what John Locke called a blank canvas, or tabula rasa, while examining the nature of moving image and  explores the light and shadow that occupy several deserted landscape around the northern region, whilst intertwined an oral history of a mother recalling her husband’s series of strange dreams.