Arin Rungjang They Beat Your Father

rin Rungjang’s solo exhibition “They Beat Your Father” featured three of the artist’s audio-visual installations that shed light on Asia’s , or undocumented migrants, in sentimental yet unassuming ways. The show’s curatorial structure was haunted by doubles. Within the gallery, a line of connection was threaded between the testimony of the artist’s mother on her husband’s passing, and the lives of migrant workers in Singapore (2019). This work comprises cinematic portraits of 12 migrant workers, whose penetrating gazes exude a quiet dignity. These portraits render them as breathing, unique subjects, refusing generalization into social types. Yet information about these workers is sparse. On the one hand, the work’s reticence potentially invited critique of a lack of sociological depth, but on the other hand, this vagueness protected the artist’s collaborators, considering the quandaries surrounding representation of marginalized communities.