Pitchapa Wangprasertkul
Throughout May 2026, Pitchapa Wangprasertkul was in residence at Methone in Athens. During this time, she pursued research and developed a project that led to a one-week residency presentation examining how tourism economies in Bangkok and Athens reshape culture to meet external expectations, transforming everyday life, displacing local practices, and eroding communities’ sense of belonging.
Pitchapa Wangprasertkul’s residency in Athens was developed between Phenomenon and the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre (BACC), within the framework of BACC’s 8th Early Years Project (EYP#8), and as part of Phenomenon’s Methone residency programme.
From the beginning of her journey from Bangkok to Athens, Pitchapa Wangprasertkul noticed how advertisements on flight booking websites, in airports and on airplanes repeatedly portrayed her destination beneath a clear blue sky. This visual overlapped with her own experience working in an advertising agency, where the colour of the sky in tourism campaigns was often adjusted to appear brighter and more saturated. Recognising the same visual in advertisements for both Athens and Bangkok, Wangprasertkul became interested in how this almost identical, iconic shade of blue functions as an imaginary for tourists, promising that their ideal vacation will be filled with bright sunlight and warm weather.
After her first week of residency in Exarcheia, she began noticing the same blue colour again – this time in the everyday objects used by people in the neighbourhood. The colour appeared to her both as an invitation to tourists and as evidence of the tourism that had followed that invitation.
In her residency presentation, titled ‘Please Come Visit My Country’, Wangprasertkul collects blue objects found on the streets during her exploration of Athens, using these materials to reconstruct an artificial blue sky — a replica of the scene tourists have come to expect from the city. Through this installation, the exhibition space is camouflaged and transformed, as if surrendering to the waves of tourism and striving, at last, to become a tourist destination itself.
‘Please Come Visit My Country’ portrays the effect of repetitive visuals continuously reproduced through tourism advertising in both Athens and Bangkok, two cities whose economies heavily rely on tourism. Amid ongoing global conflicts and war, this economic dependence has reshaped cultures and lives in an attempt to meet tourists’ expectations – chief among them, the promised blue sky.
We are grateful of EIGHT / Το ΟΧΤΩ for having hosted the residency presentation.
Pitchapa Wangprasertkul is an artist working with performance and installation. Her practice explores both the exhaustion and resilience of modern life shaped by capitalism and ongoing economic pressures. Through her works, she reflects on the laborers’ attempt to survive within conditions of economic instability. Wangprasertkul’s performances often examine power relations and invite viewers into immersive situations, turning the act of observation into a collective awareness of the pressures of urban life.
She was first introduced to performance art at 19 as a facilitator for The Abramović Method exhibition at the 2018 Bangkok Art Biennale, and presented her first performance work in 2020. Her works include Things Left to forget & Things that stay, BACC, Bangkok (2025); Like water, Indonesia Bertutur Festival, Bali (2024) and her solo exhibition “Don’t Cry at Work” et Gallery VER, Bangkok (2024). Other performances include The Standard that was presented both at BACC, Bangkok (2022) and at Circuit Makati, Philippines (2026). Alongside her artistic practice, Wangprasertkul works in the Thai advertising industry, a parallel role that informs her perspective on the commercial system, labor and the living conditions of workers.