APICHATPONG WEERASETHAKUL: ‘Primitive’ is a very special memory of mine. It was in 2007 or even before that when I was really curious about home, and it linked with the movie ‘A Letter to Uncle Boonmee’. That’s when I was doing research about this guy, so I travel around the northeast of Thailand. And then I stumble into this small village, where there’s like a pretty brutal history.

I’m personally also quite curious about dreaming, so I was thinking maybe my work is really influenced from dreaming, my logic or illogic way of dreams which is so common. I mean in the dream itself, it’s just simple things. What I’m presenting here, it’s just tiny part of the memory. I’m so amazed and happy that it’s ongoing.

For the presentation at M+, it’s [an] ongoing journey. Here, the space offers some kind of vertical space. We play with a kind of floating lights. And you enter, you navigate through these dots of memories, and always with this giant teen with the ghost mask, welcoming you or becom[ing] like something really big, larger than life. And also there is flickering light that is reflected on the walls, also on the floor itself, and some movies are projected onto the glass where the image is. You can play [it] on your body. And so all this flickering is the ending of the show, it’s this music video. The title is ‘I’m Still Breathing’, so I think this pulse of light is like the show itself, It’s [saying], ‘Okay, I’m still alive’, my heart is beating here, in Hong Kong.